Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / When Your Collection Needs A Reset: Selling & Changing Your Sports Card Collection

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When Your Collection Needs A Reset: Selling & Changing Your Sports Card Collection · Sports Card Clubhouse

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In our massive country, there are card collectors throughout
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the land participating in the hobby.
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There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero and Greg of Midlife Cards, And
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while distance may separate them, here is where they come
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together to talk cards. This is where we come together
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to talk cards. Mike, how are you doing today?
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So good, so good, Greg. Yeah, today, you know what?
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Today I went, I had to go get my Apple, my iPhone fixed.
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And while I was there, they have all their amazing devices out
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and you can test them. And I ended up buying a pair of
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Airpods. You're, you're like, I mean,
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just doing that. It's like going back into the
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future. You're like, all of a sudden
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you're like in high school and cool.
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I I was never cool in high school and I've never been cool
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since. OK, well, we can all think that
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we're cool though. Sure.
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All right, so you released a video recently.
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Yeah, I did. And your video was about how
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you're looking to sell some of your collection and, and, and
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you, you talked about how you were kind of deciding what you
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were going to sell and kind of why you were going to sell it
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and, and that whole thing. So what spurred this?
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And it just take me through the process of, of you being a
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collector. You've got all these cards.
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And then you said, you know, I'm going to start a purge.
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What happened? Yeah, so I moved from the corner
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of my basement where I wasn't able to display.
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I, I think I might have had 33 cards on display or 39 cards, 3
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rows of 13 that I was able to display.
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And I moved into this office and my goal always was to have all
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of my cards on display, plus some binders and then like one
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big box where I can just easily pull cards out where I, you
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know, I know where they are. But as I moved in here, I
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realized, man, I have. Not only do I have 10s of
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thousands of cards, largely from the Vermont collection that I
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never did anything with due to time constraints from last year,
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but I also have a lot of cards that I loved at one point and
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still do love, but they don't really fit what I want to do.
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And I thought, man, there's so many cards I want.
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Do I really want to just leave all these cards in boxes in my
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closet or do I want to sell a bunch of these cards and
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consolidate down to, I don't know, two or three bigger cards
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that I can display and be really, really happy with
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instead of these to start, I don't know, 200 ish cards that
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are all worth between two and $200.
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And if I can sell these for a total of even, I don't know,
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$1500 maybe, then that's 2 pretty big cars or one really
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big card for me. Yeah, and so that that bigger
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card is is scratching a bigger itch apparently than the smaller
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cards. Do you feel like, are you
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worried about any regret of like, why did I do this or, or
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are you just like, because you had mentioned in the video that
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you had sold some stuff once before, I think.
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And then, and then you're doing this again and you're, you're
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kind of feeling confident about it.
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Like take me through that because I've recently been
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looking at doing a facelift for my collection and dramatic pause
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and I've I've been like, well, am I going to regret this?
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I sold 18 months ago. I sold a 2021 Sports Illustrated
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for kids. Caitlin Clark autographed and
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it's the most beautiful example of this.
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Has bright yellow autograph of Caitlin Clark.
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I paid a grand total of $110.00 for this card.
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Autographed, slabbed. I bought it autographed already
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before she became big and then I slabbed it with PSA and then her
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values just blew up 18 months after that.
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And I said, jeez, do I need a $2000 Caitlin Clark card?
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I don't. I paid $110.00 for this and I,
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so I sold it. I went to the National with all
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this cash that I was all of a sudden flash flush with.
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And I bought some great, great cards at the National 2024.
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And I still, I don't, I can't say I regret it, but I think
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about it often and I still monitor.
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It's still the number one sale, the highest sale for 2021 Sports
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Illustrated for Kids, Caitlin Clark autographed card and I
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still monitor any sales that come up with these.
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There aren't very many. Like one just sold yesterday for
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thirteen, $1400 on eBay. But that one also is a worse
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example than than mine. And so I think, jeez, how much
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would mine sell for now? I don't know.
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But my point is that I do think about it and I but that's a
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really, really rare card and I don't have any rare cards.
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I, I worry about regretting selling off my Yaz collection.
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I'm keeping the 1960 and 1961 but I worry about the rest
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'cause I I loved collecting those and I love having them.
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Sure. So I want to just keep them in a
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box in my closet that doesn't bring me any joy.
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Yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying.
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I mean, that that makes sense. And that's kind of where I think
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I'm at with some of my thought processes too.
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I, you know, last time we recorded was last Thursday.
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And I had mentioned you had at the very beginning of the
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episode you had mentioned, hey, yeah, it's almost Friday.
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And I was like, yeah, I'm taking 1/2 day sub.
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I'm going to go to Lucy's soccer game on Friday and, and just
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work 1/2 day. And so I was like I only have
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1/2 day left till the weekend. And so I live kind of southeast
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of Sacramento and I had to drive to Santa Rosa which is almost 3
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hours from with traffic and everything.
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And I went on this big. I basically binged Stacking
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Slabs and the Crossover and which are both podcasts and
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stacking slabs is mostly modern and I think I referred to him as
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Mark McGrath the other day and Mark McGrath I think wasn't he
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like. Sugar Ray.
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Yeah, he was the Sugar Ray guy. Anyway, he, he, I love his
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channel and, and he kept talking about this concept that I want
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to ask you about because he kept talking about having like your
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North Star, which is like your direction of where you're going.
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And sort of like your, your point that you can identify to
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keep you on course is like that's kind of fixed.
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So you're kind of you start to veer off course and then that
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kind of keeps you back headed in the right direction when you
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start to veer off course. And you said a second ago that
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they don't fit what I want to do anymore.
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And, and I'm curious, did your, did your North Star move or did
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your, did you hit some rocks and and you found it a new
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lighthouse, a new shiny object that you wanted to go after?
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Like how did that happen that you had things you were
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acquiring because they did fit, but then suddenly they no longer
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fit. Now I understand your you, you
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know, you just said you moved the room and you have more space
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and you have more area to display things and you don't
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want stuff in boxes. But, but that's still just a
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piece of what you want your collection to be.
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Like when, when you, when people add cards to their collection,
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it's, it's more than just a car to your collection.
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It's sort of like your collection kind of represents
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what you want you're collecting to be.
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And so when you're cutting off limbs and, you know,
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transplanting new ones in new areas, it's kind of a big thing
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to to change like what was your North Star like?
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What was your identity? And then what would you say your
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identity has become? Yeah, ever since I was a little
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kid, I was obsessed with rookie cards and as I was obsessed with
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the Hall of Fame, I've always loved Hall of Fame debates.
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I've loved Hall of Fame players. Even Jack Morris.
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Not really. I don't.
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I don't love him, but I respect him.
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And so I decided that I didn't want to have second year cards,
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third year cards, unless those cards also have the Rookie Cup,
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the All Star Cup, and I want Hall of Fame rookie cards.
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And then I have a dozen other things.
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So this actually fits. I have a Kang Griffey junior
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rookie card collection. I want to have all of the Kang
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Griffey junior rookie cards, period.
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I don't care what grade they're in.
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I just want to have every single one.
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And there are a lot of them. You'd be surprised.
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They're 30 some odd, I think. And then, you know, like Pedro
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Martinez refractors from the 1990s.
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Those are things that are really cool.
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Nomar Garcia Para. So there's a Red Sox subset of
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my collection. Nomar is not a Hall of Famer,
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but I loved Nomar when he was you know, from 1997 to 2003 was
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a huge Nomar fan, loved Pedro. Do I want to so I could see
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myself getting away. I selling off my Carl Yustremsky
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slabs outside of 1960 and 61. Can I see myself selling off my
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Ted Williams collection that aren't his rookie?
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Probably not, because I have a hard time ever seeing myself
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getting one of his rookies, and frankly, I don't even like his
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rookie card. So I'm trying to get the Ted
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Williams run. I'm trying to get the the Jackie
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Robinson all of his 1950s cards too.
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But wait a second, You just said that you're a Hall of Fame
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rookie card guy and then you said you want to do a run for
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Jackie and Ted Williams and so and and Nomar and and Pedro and
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so are you. I see a lot of rabbit holes that
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you're walking by and it it's like is there?
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Is there? Are they like black holes where
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they're like sucking you down them?
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To some extent. So I also have a program, Red
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Sox program collection I have, a rapper collection I have.
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Like like Eminem and and stuff. No wax wrappers as you know
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'cause you helped me find 1. Sure I have there.
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I have a vintage video game collection.
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There's so many things that I like to collect.
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I will never finish my collection and that's why I had
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to say, holy smokes, I've got to get rid of some of the stuff
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that doesn't really fit, doesn't bring me joy.
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Who is it? Marie Kondo?
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I've never seen anything she does, but I know that she's
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famous for saying get rid of anything that doesn't spark joy.
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And these cards that I was getting rid of didn't didn't
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spark joy in my collection. So some of them, like couple of
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Perez steel postcards, I love Perez steel.
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I had loved Don Rus Diamond Kings as a kid.
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When I got back into the collection, I learned about the
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postcards and various other Perez steel cards and I started
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buying some occasionally, like Mike Moynihan sold me some.
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But after a while I was like, I can't collect all of these
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things. I can collect Don Rus Diamond
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Kings, but I can't collect every Perez Steel thing.
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I don't have the money, I don't have the time.
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I don't have the space for it all.
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I think we OK, so maybe it's not a North Star.
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Maybe there's three legs to the stool and the all three legs are
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important towards keeping you upright.
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And one of the legs is Hall of Fame rookie cards.
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That's the big one. That's the biggest leg.
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What? And then then you've got the the
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Red Sock thing, but not enough so that you want to keep all of
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these Karl Yasrim ski cards that you're just talking about
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wanting to cut. So I mean, he's what, the second
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best Red Sock of all time? Maybe, but I'm going to amend
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that a little bit. I still want the cards, I just
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don't want them slapped. I want them in a binder.
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OK. So and, and in a in raw state,
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Carl Yastremsky. I have a binder with, I don't
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know, 3 or 400 unique Carl Yastremsky cards which I love.
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It doesn't take up any space and I can pull it out at any point
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and add to it and I I just don't want the slabs.
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I have a giant box of Carl Yastremsky slabs that sit in my
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closet. Do you have pliers and a
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screwdriver 'cause you can make those slabbed cards no longer
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slab. But if I can sell them for
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$40.50 dollars, $60.00 and then buy the card raw for three or
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four, why would I crack them out and give up all that money that
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I that you could sell them for? I mean, I, I'm, you're, you're
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like baiting me to, to go on a massive sidebar when you just
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said if you could buy this, if you could sell this slabbed
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version of it for 40 or $50 and you could buy it raw for three
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or four. I mean, that does make my head
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want to explode. When you, when you talk about it
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that way, it's like, that's insane.
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Right. Some of them are, I mean some of
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them are $10, right, raw, right. But I'm selling those for
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between, I don't know, 30 and $100 slabbed and I can get, I
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don't know, 500, seven, 100 bucks and then buy them all back
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raw for under 100 a hundred, maybe $200.
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Now, when you're selling these cards, you're selling, you know,
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a bunch of cards where and I know you talked about on the
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video, but that doesn't mean you're, you know, we we can at
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least bring it up here. Where do you sell?
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Like what is what is the move in selling?
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I know that you spoke with Chris Sewell on another Sports Card
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Clubhouse video about So you want to, you know, be a dealer
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or what was it? No, you got it so.
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You want to be a dealer and, and I listened to it.
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It was, it was great. And he talked about all the
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different places that he sells and how if it meets this
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criteria, if it does this, if it does that.
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So how do you make that decision?
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Yeah. So if I were ever in the space
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where I needed to sell my collection, obviously I would
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sell it to Chris. That's that's a no brainer.
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And I have instructions for my wife in case something happens
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to me to just call Chris because he will take care of me, take
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care of her with my collection. But I'm not at that place and I
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don't expect to be for decades. And so I reached out to him for
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some advice and he said put them in CIA collector investor
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auctions, put, he said the ones that are like $50 and up.
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And so I picked out nine that I think will sell for over $50.
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A couple of them might be a little bit questionable.
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And I talked to Theo, Theo was amazing help.
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Theo works for CIA now and he was amazing help for me in just
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easing my mind. I've never used an an auction
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house before. I've never sold anything at
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auction other than on eBay. And he made it so impossibly
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easy for me and just kind of like, reassured me.
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I was like, I was like his little kid.
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He'd be like, you can do this, Mike.
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Yeah. And it was great.
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Yeah, I mean, I've been really impressed.
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You know, I, I had heard of collector investor auctions and
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then, you know, Theo had told me kind of privately that he was
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maybe going to start working there.
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And so I started looking into them more and, you know, I met
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with you. Actually, I met Jeremy for the
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first time at the National. Really nice guy.
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Seems like they're doing a great job.
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So then I was like, well, I'm going to poke around the
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website. So I had that episode with Theo
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where we look at the website and it was really good.
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And then I ended up buying a card on it and I mean it.
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I think that there are a lot of people who feel like they can
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only buy at a card shop, a card show or eBay.
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And I think those people are missing out.
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And and I think that us talking about these sorts of places, I
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hope that it helps people consider other avenues in which
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to acquire cards because I was pretty impressed.
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Yeah. And then I have a bunch of cards
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probably I don't know, 150 to 200 that'll add to my Comm C
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store that are low, low dollar value.
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Or some of them might be like $75.00 that I would not want to
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auction off because there's not a huge demand for them.
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So I'll just list them at the lowest price imaginable to
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lowest price you can find them for online and just wait for a
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buyer. But I would not auction them
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because they're the types of cards that are like one buyer
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cards. Yeah.
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So COMC is another great place. I, I sent out a box of a couple
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100 cards to COMC. A lot of autographs, a lot of
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patches or early patches, not like 2020 and up patches of
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really, really good players. And those go to COMC.
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I have like 400 cards in my COMC already.
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I find that really easy. And you know, I got emails after
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I did that video from probably a dozen people, emails, texts,
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messages saying, hey, that card you showed, I would love to buy
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that from you. And I really appreciate those
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messages. But the whole reason I've chose
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CIA and Com C are because I hate haggling.
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I hate shipping, I hate collecting money.
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I just want to send them all in one batch or two in this case
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and simplify the process and let them deal with it.
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I don't have to do anything except price them.
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Yeah, I mean, there is a certain time, you know, value element to
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where do you put your time and things and where do you there?
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I'm, I'm really cheap, like really cheap.
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And so, so I have a hard time hiring anybody to do anything
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that I, I, my next door neighbor, you know, we needed to
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build a fence. And he goes, well, you know,
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I'll get some quotes and I'm like, bro, I ain't ever going to
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get ahead in life if I hire people to do things I'm fully
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capable of doing. But I, I tore my rotator cuff
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building that fence by myself. And for the next year and a
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half, it's been sore. And I'm like, maybe it's OK if
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I'm at the point where I just have some other people deal with
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that stuff. Because you're right, it's.
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It is a pain to mail stuff and it is it would be easy if I have
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a box of stuff. And one of the things I want to
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get into is like I have put together a few runs of a few
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players and part of the appeal for me of doing a run was the
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hunt of the run. So like I did an auto gram run,
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like all of his playing days cards from his rookie card all
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the way to his his last card. And and then I did a Sammy Baugh
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run and I've been working on a Jim Brown run.
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And what I noticed is as soon as I finished the autogram run and
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the Sammy Baugh run, once they were complete, I was like, why
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did I do that? The fun part for me was hunting
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for the right specimen of that card that fits with the other
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cards. And then I look at the autogram
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cards and I'm like, I like all the cards, but the one that I
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really like is that beautiful rookie card.
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And the other ones, I'm like, I've got $280 of value wrapped
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up in that card right there. Like do I really want to have
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$280 wrapped up in that card? So it was like I was so in love
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with the hunt of finding each of them and having all these saved
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searches and going to shows and going to the National and going
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to Strongsville and looking through cases at football cases
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and going, oh, there's another. Let me take a look at it and
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looking through the stack of the guy who had multiple.
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But I love the hunt and the the pirate set that I did like
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everyone, you know, these cards are like most of those pirate
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cards between PSA and SGC combined is like a pop 20 to 25
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total. And I'm like, I want to build
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the set partly because it felt virtually impossible.
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And then I built it in like a year and a half and like I, I'm
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on some Facebook, you know, non sport Facebook groups and
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they're like, I posted a picture when I finished it.
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I'm like, yeah, I did that in a year and a half.
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And there were people like, no, you didn't.
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That's impossible. And I'm like, no, I really did.
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Like I just, but I love trying to, you know, take a machete
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through the jungle to try to, you know, find myself in the
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presence of some card that seems like I'll never find it.
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And sometimes that isn't the card itself, but it's the right
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card. Like finding like the 1951
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Bowman autogram is always off center.
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Always. So I finally, it took me two
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years to find a centered 1. And then I got it and it showed
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up and I'm looking and I'm like, this thing is awesome.
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And now what it was like I, I sometimes love the hunt as much
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as anything. And so now I'm like, OK, check
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that box now the pirate cards. I love the beauty of them 'cause
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I'm also an, I like AI appeal person, but not just it has to
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have good quote UN quote. I appeal like Dylan double DI
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appeal, but it has to be like a pretty card like here's another
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card. I Warren Spahn.
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I like Warren Spahn a lot. I like his story.
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I like that he served in the military.
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I like, you know that he's overlooked and I have his 48
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Bowman rookie card, his 49 leaf pseudo rookie card.
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I have his 53 Bowman color card and I was looking at him the
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other day and I'm like the 48 Bowman.
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It doesn't really do it for me. I love the 49 leaf and I love
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the 53 Bowman. I don't think I need the rookie
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card because I like these other cards because I'm I'm, I like
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the looks of things like beautiful images.
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And so I'm kind of like itching for a new hunt.
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And we talked about this last week when I was talking about do
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I go out there Patrick Willis refractor cards or what do I do?
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Because I'm hungry for a new hunt and I don't know what it
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is. And some of the cards that I've
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picked up that I haunted and I loved hunting.
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I'm like, OK, that was fun and that one and that one I love and
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I'm going to keep long term because I love the beauty of
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them, but I don't think I need to keep some of these other ones
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that I I haunted and I conquered and, and now it's time to set
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them free. Yeah, how about Russell
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Westbrook rookie cards now that he's on your hometown team?
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I don't think I'm going to be going that route, especially
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after how they looked. It looks like it was a salary,
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salary acquisition more than I don't know.
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I no Russell Westbrook, but there are some former Kings that
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I like a lot. But I'm not I'm not as much of a
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basketball guy unless it's old basketball.
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I like modern football cards and I like modern baseball card, but
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there are a couple of modern basketball.
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I don't know. I'm a mess right now.
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My head is everywhere. I literally Brian, the high pop
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professor brothers with iconic owl.
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I I messaged him yesterday and I said you are the guy that I know
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that is most in tune with 90s refractors.
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I know that Shane Shoebox legends is there.
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I know that Dylan's got some. I know that Adam's Splendid
25:56
Sports has some, so I reached out to Brian.
25:59
I said if you were to pick like 20 refractors from the 90s that
26:05
you think whether a combination of beauty and rarity and what
26:09
are the ones. I was just thinking he was just
26:11
going to fire off some. He gives me this like 3 hours
26:15
later, he sends me this comprehensive list.
26:17
And I was like, Oh my gosh. Like he goes, yeah, I really,
26:20
you know, I did. And I was just like, this is I
26:23
felt like I have like this secret treasure map to all of
26:27
his knowledge he put down for me.
26:30
And I'm like excited to start going through the list.
26:33
Yeah, Adam did the same thing for me with Pedro Martinez
26:36
refractors. He sent me, I don't know, top 25
26:40
Pedro Martinez playing day's refractors.
26:42
I think they're all from the 90s or maybe early 2000s all.
26:46
Yeah, and I looked at that. I was like, oh, I was so
26:49
excited. But then I started looking at
26:50
the prices and holy crap man, I know they are.
26:54
So would you rather have a Hank Aaron rookie card or would you
26:58
rather have a Pedro refractor? No question, it's a Hank Aaron
27:01
rookie card. It's not even close.
27:04
But the but but the Hank Aaron rookie card is way more
27:08
plentiful than the Pedro refractor.
27:11
Sure, but. So you're not a rare guy, You're
27:14
an iconic guy, not a rare guy. Exactly.
27:16
I want cards that are in demand. I want So when I see
27:20
collections, I get jealous of certain cards and that's the
27:23
whole point of my attainable collection of envy 100 is when I
27:28
see them, I go, oh man, I love that card.
27:30
I got to have that card. Most of them are rookie cards.
27:33
Most of them are iconic and most of them are plentiful.
27:37
Not all of them, but most of them are.
27:39
And I the scarcity isn't for me. I totally get it.
27:44
This isn't a criticism of people who want rare cards because
27:47
they're rare. It's just that it's, it doesn't
27:49
do anything for me. But yeah, the Hank Aaron rookie
27:55
is very high on my list. I'm starting to realize slowly
28:00
but surely that I'm I'm a nostalgia collector and I
28:05
thought I was an iconic card collector, but I think I'm
28:10
actually a, a beauty and image beauty collector slash nostalgia
28:15
collector. And a lot of the nostalgia comes
28:19
from a lot of iconic cards are nostalgic for me because they
28:24
were on the magazines, they were at the, the cases in the shows.
28:27
I remember going because we used to go to some big shows out on
28:31
the West. Cause some of the biggest shows
28:32
there were nationals that used to be out on the West Coast.
28:35
Imagine that even in San Francisco, in LA, there were
28:39
nationals and you would go to these big shows.
28:42
And I remember looking in the cases and seeing some of these
28:45
old tobacco cards. And so I was always like, man,
28:49
I'd just love to own one. And then I started buying some
28:52
T2O sixes. And then I'm like, well, I need
28:54
a project to hunt. I need, I need, I'm not going to
28:58
do like a Yankee team set or something.
29:01
I I want to do some sort of project.
29:03
So I was like, I'm going to do the Hall of Fame run, not Plank
29:07
and Wagner. But then I, I was buying them
29:10
and I was and then I started going, why do I like these ones?
29:14
Why when I picked up this one, did it feel so much better than
29:19
this one? And what I think that I'm
29:22
realizing is when I was a kid, the cards that I remember the
29:26
looks of the best were the portraits.
29:29
And I didn't, I didn't really remember the quote UN quote
29:33
action shots. And so I'm like, I was picking
29:38
up the portraits and the action shots.
29:42
But the, the thing I have ingrained in my brain was seeing
29:47
these portraits is like, man, that's like the Mona Lisa.
29:50
It's like the guy got dressed up in his formal first day of
29:52
school, you know, picture and it, it, it was like this formal
29:57
look. It was, it was a baseball
29:59
player, but it was like his dressed up.
30:01
It was like the military guy who's in his formal uniform
30:05
picture, you know, it's like it, it, there's something about
30:08
that. And, and so I'm starting to
30:10
realize, well, maybe some of the action shots aren't, maybe I
30:15
shouldn't cut keep them. Maybe I should cut those loose
30:18
so I have more money for some of the portrait ones, which are the
30:22
ones that I think I'm most nostalgic for.
30:25
Because sometimes there are cards that you like, you go, but
30:28
you're like, I don't know why I like that.
30:30
I think I like this type of thing, but it wasn't that type
30:34
of thing that you liked. It was actually something very
30:37
specific that you liked, but you thought it was broader than it
30:39
actually was. Yeah, plus there are a lot of
30:42
Hall of Famers in the T2O6 set that I've never even heard of,
30:47
even though they're Hall of Farmers.
30:49
But just they're a bunch of them that you go who?
30:53
Who is that? That's really cool name because
30:55
I love the names from back then. But yeah.
30:58
To me, if they're beautiful cards, they're still worth
31:02
having. And then I go back to this, you
31:05
know, I've said this before, like I've been very picky in
31:09
particular as I've picked them up.
31:11
Like there are cards I just waited for two years until the
31:14
right one came up and then I bought it.
31:16
And now I have these, I think really nice for the grade cards.
31:22
So I'm like, OK, if I'm going to cut some of these loose because
31:26
I'm going to go after some other stuff, There's no, there's no
31:30
way I'm only going to take that amount for the card, even though
31:33
that's what I paid for it. I'm like, I'm not, I can't take
31:36
that, you know, because this one's way too nice.
31:40
It took two years to find this one.
31:43
So that's one of my issues with sending something off to sell is
31:48
like I need a human to to appreciate it the way I
31:55
appreciate it, you know? Absolutely, Yeah.
32:00
And you said something a little earlier about I appeal and with
32:04
vintage, and that's part of the beauty of vintage that you don't
32:07
get with ultra modern cards is that search for the right card,
32:11
the right example of a card with ultra modern, you're just
32:14
looking for good centering. Corners are very rarely dinged
32:19
up. The the surface rarely has
32:22
problems, the edges rarely have problems.
32:27
And in vintage, if you if you're an eye appeal nut like I am, you
32:32
have that search. You might find the card that
32:34
you're looking for, you might find 10 of them at one table.
32:38
But if none of them meet what you're looking for, that is the
32:41
thrill of the hunt. A. 100% that's, that's the most
32:46
exciting part about vintage is that the number of variables are
32:52
infinite because there are corners in centering and
32:56
surface. And you know, there, there's,
32:59
there's so many different things.
33:01
It's, it's like hunting for a new car versus hunting for a
33:04
used car. The new cars are pretty close to
33:07
the same, you know, maybe a little different, but the used
33:11
cars, not every 2016, you know, Toyota Camry is equal.
33:18
There's a wide variance between them.
33:21
And so if you're just looking at the mileage and you're just
33:25
looking at the exterior body condition, like you're probably
33:29
missing out on some stuff. That's like why when they price
33:32
houses based on square footage, you're like, there's a little
33:35
bit more to the what is appealing about a house than the
33:38
square footage in the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, right?
33:41
Yep, for sure. So where do you go from here?
33:46
Like where are you in the process right now and and what
33:50
are the next steps in the process?
33:52
I've sent the cards off. So the cards that went to CIA,
33:57
those will be in their auction starting at $0.99 in the month
34:00
of November. There are nine of them if I
34:03
remember correctly. And so I don't know what those
34:06
will sell for. I honestly don't care.
34:08
I'm not trying to profit from them.
34:09
I just want to sell them and get a little bit of money and then
34:13
I'm probably take the money to Strongsville or something, I'm
34:16
not really sure. And then I also, I'm sending off
34:19
or sent off a couple 100 cards to come see.
34:22
And once those are received, I'm actually paying up to the dollar
34:25
tier so that they're received in four weeks.
34:28
And then I'm just thinking, wouldn't it be fun to, to,
34:33
because I know that I have viewers who want my cards.
34:37
If people forward a receipt of a card that they bought from me or
34:42
show me the card, I'll, I'll mail them a junk wax hero
34:46
sticker, something like that. It would be super inexpensive
34:49
for me to do something like that, but maybe people would
34:52
appreciate that. I don't know, maybe they
34:53
wouldn't, but I I think I'd offer that up.
34:56
I think that would be fun just to make sure that the the cards
35:02
are more likely to get into the hands of my viewers.
35:06
I've thought a lot about how to do the same because I think a
35:12
lot of the people who watch your channel or watch my channel,
35:16
it's because we had some similar interests, some similar eye,
35:20
similar appreciations of the intricacies of the hobby.
35:24
And so one of the things I've actually thought about is like,
35:26
OK, if, if I'm going to sell some of these, do I put them on
35:31
my channel first? Do I say, hey, I'm going to put
35:35
these, I'm going to put these up on eBay in 10 days.
35:39
If if you have any interest, just, you know, message me and I
35:42
know I get your thing of I don't want to deal with it.
35:44
I just, you know, want, I just want to be done with it, which I
35:48
think a lot of people are in those shoes.
35:51
I probably again, should be more in those shoes, but I'm probably
35:55
not as much as I want to be. I thought about that like, well,
35:59
maybe I just do like a card show.
36:02
Maybe I go, hey, it's all for sale if you're interested.
36:05
I mean, it could be kind of fun, like I mean, because if some of
36:08
my friends like like I bought a card from Tony Lebrick and I was
36:11
like, it's one of Tony's cards. Like it, it's a little bit more
36:16
special that it was a card that Tony went out, saw, found, said.
36:20
I love that card made the purchase was in his collection.
36:25
Like that's I think that's kind of cool.
36:28
There's some fun to the history of of where the card came from
36:32
like that. Yeah, absolutely.
36:37
Well, we have zoomed through 36 minutes.
36:39
I know that our target is between 40 and 45, which means
36:43
we've got a few more minutes to talk.
36:45
I, I, we've gotten pretty heavy into this.
36:48
You turning some stuff over, I guess.
36:53
I guess if there are people listening and they're thinking
36:56
about selling some stuff and, and I've, I've mentioned Hi pop
37:02
professor Brian and iconic Al a few times over the last couple
37:05
of weeks, but I, I really do enjoy those two.
37:09
And they were talking the other day about because values have
37:13
gotten fairly high on some cards, higher than maybe some
37:17
people realize that they've gotten that.
37:19
Maybe they always refer to their collections as a bonsai tree
37:23
that they're constantly shaping and clipping and directing and,
37:28
and it's always changing and there's new growth in some areas
37:32
and there's cutting off some of the excess and other areas.
37:36
And it's just a wonderful metaphor, especially if you're
37:39
our age and grew up watching The Karate Kid.
37:42
But but they they were saying the other day, yeah, with the
37:47
prices kind of creeping up, now's not a bad time to shake
37:52
the bonsai tree and see what comes out because there are some
37:56
maybe sometimes to do that. So as a person who is in that
38:01
process right now, what advice would you give to anybody
38:05
listening saying I'm thinking about shaking the bonsai tree?
38:12
Do you have any recommendations? Not again, not on where to sell,
38:14
we've talked about that, but on how to identify what really is
38:19
loose and what really maybe is actually still attached because
38:24
you just went through that process.
38:26
Yeah, I would just keep it simple.
38:27
So if you're if the bulk of the majority of your collection is
38:32
kind of centers around certain things and then you have these
38:37
cards that are outside of that, do you have those for a good
38:41
reason? Do they make sense for your
38:43
collection? So for instance, I have a Carl
38:46
Ostremsky what what year was the scorecards that were autographed
38:49
by Yaz and Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial is a 92 score I.
38:55
Don't know. I have that Yaz autographed and
38:59
I love it and I'm not selling it but I I have like a 2021 Yaz
39:06
autograph Panini that I am selling because Panini one gives
39:11
me no joy. The score 1 I don't it's hard to
39:15
explain it's it's cooler I guess I.
39:19
Think nostalgia. Where?
39:20
Is the underlying current for a lot of us.
39:24
Yep. Can I?
39:27
Can I read you a comment that we got today?
39:30
Oh boy. Yeah, go ahead.
39:34
He says. I do love both of you guys and
39:36
together you seem awkward at best.
39:41
Again, I enjoy both of your shows, I really do.
39:44
But you guys together are like Abbott and Hardy.
39:49
If you remember Abbott and Costello, I don't know.
39:52
If you remember Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy,
39:54
we would be a combination of them because we don't go well
39:57
together apparently. And I think, I think we go great
40:00
together, Greg. Yeah, I mean, I hope so.
40:06
I I that what makes something go well together and not well
40:11
together. I think for me is how quickly
40:15
time moves when I'm interacting with the person.
40:19
If I'm constantly looking at the clock going, oh boy, we have
40:24
another 74 minutes. You know, like my first period
40:27
class, then it's different than my second period class where the
40:31
time actually moves a lot faster.
40:34
Certain personalities like that can maybe do it.
40:38
I appreciate that comment even though I don't necessarily agree
40:45
with it because it wasn't done harshly.
40:49
It was, it sounded like it was done lovingly.
40:52
And I had AI had a guy for reading comments or talking
40:57
about I. I had a guy e-mail me a very
41:01
long e-mail today, a really sweet e-mail.
41:05
I mean, he was over the top trying to not be offensive.
41:11
And he was basically telling me that one of the reasons that my
41:15
he didn't think that my channel had kind of taken hold as much
41:20
as it could was because the tire that I wear is a little frumpy.
41:28
And it's hard to take somebody seriously when they're just like
41:32
in like T-shirts and hoodies. And that the setting in which I
41:37
record, which is on my bedroom, sitting on my bed wasn't like a
41:44
card room like a lot of people have.
41:46
That's more card oriented. And it's funny because like I
41:51
totally appreciated how he said it, that he was like, I don't
41:55
want to, I don't let this guy know because I want, I think of
41:58
this might be good feedback for him.
42:00
And quite frankly, it was good feedback.
42:03
Like it, everything he said, I'm like, I don't disagree with you,
42:07
but I have never tried to be or want to be or think that I am
42:16
some sort of guru or some sort of professional presenter of
42:23
sports card content. I kind of want to just be a
42:27
regular dude who doesn't have any equipment.
42:31
And I mean, like the microphone that I got was a gift, you know,
42:37
from a, a distant relative over the holidays that I spent six
42:43
months to take out-of-the-box and plug in.
42:46
But I, I don't know, it's, I think it's very endearing that
42:52
people would reach out and say something like, even though it's
42:56
not necessarily going to change me or we're like, OK, well,
42:59
let's pull the RIP cord on this. Mike.
43:01
I guess this isn't working because we got, because it's
43:04
Costello and you know, Seinfeld or whatever.
43:09
I'd obviously be Seinfeld. I think that it's sweet that
43:14
people actually care and are willing to offer that feedback.
43:19
Like that doesn't bug me at all. No, no, not at all.
43:23
And I think that part of the appeal of us, Greg, is, you
43:27
know, you're familiar with the phrase.
43:29
He's just a guy. Yeah.
43:32
We're just a guy. We're just two guys.
43:35
We're not experts. We're not claiming to be
43:37
experts. We're not trying to, I don't
43:41
know. We're only the very small number
43:46
of sponsors you and I have are for products that we use and
43:50
believe in. We're not trying to sell you on
43:52
a million different things that don't make a whole lot of sense
43:55
for us. And so I feel like we're, we're
43:59
just regular guys and I, I never intended to have a channel that
44:05
got even marginally popular like mine has.
44:09
Yeah, but it has and I've enjoyed it.
44:10
I love it, every minute of it. I think that it's sort of like
44:14
this. I think that what we've, what
44:19
you have done with your channel is you, you are a very, I, I
44:24
want to respond to the comment that you read of you, You let's,
44:31
I don't want to get political. I was going to use a political
44:34
person, but it's not politically based.
44:36
So Tom Brokaw, right? Tom Brokaw is very well known of
44:42
doing his thing and he was very good at, you know, what he did
44:46
and, and had his kind of following.
44:48
And then Dan Rather, you know, Dan Rather had did his thing and
44:53
they did things similarly, but there were differences.
44:57
But it was like Dan Rather was sort of like that the head of
45:01
his brand and Tom Brokaw was the head of his brand.
45:06
And then to see them on screen together is like, wait a second,
45:11
These are these are two different things that that
45:14
doesn't seem natural for those two things to be together
45:18
because one is doing this one and one is doing this one.
45:21
And now they're now they're doing them together.
45:24
It it, it's sort of like seeing Don Mattingly as the bench coach
45:28
on the Blue Jays. You're like, what?
45:31
Like Don Mattingly? Like Don Mattingly is a leader
45:35
in the Yankee dugout, not an assistant leader in the Blue
45:39
Jays dugout. I just learned I've always felt
45:41
that way. He's a coach on the Blue Jays.
45:44
What's that? I just learned this week that
45:46
he's a coach on the Blue Jays. Oh, really, when they that was
45:48
kind of a painful thing for Yankee fans to, to go through
45:53
that and, and especially since most of his Yankee fans hate
45:59
Boone, even though I think Red Sox fans probably love Boone.
46:02
So they don't want him ever to get fired.
46:04
We we don't like him. I think he's probably a decent
46:07
person after. Come on, it's time, dude.
46:12
We continually say as Yankee fans, oh, we got booned again.
46:16
Like, I mean, you've become like a verb.
46:23
He made a booner. There was there was a a manager
46:28
of the Red Sox who I'm sure you'll remember named Jimmy
46:30
Williams. I remember Jimmy with one MJIMY
46:34
Williams. Yeah, every time he did
46:37
something stupid, I called him Jimmy.
46:39
There there was a national radio show and once a week they would
46:45
point out the most boneheaded coaching decision of the week.
46:48
And it was called the Jimmy of the Week.
46:51
I don't remember the name of the national radio show where I
46:55
would give him credit for that. But I remember going, oh, it's
46:57
time for the Jimmy of the Week. And he would talk about some
47:00
awful decision by somebody. So, well, 47 minutes.
47:07
This was a pleasure, though. It is clearly boiling water.
47:13
A second period pleasure, not a first period pleasure.
47:16
Right. My first period is is a
47:19
nightmare. My second period is fantastic.
47:23
So yeah, it was a second period style pleasure.
47:26
Good. Yes, Anything you want to throw
47:30
out there? Oh, I have one thing to throw
47:32
out there. I have a live stream on Monday
47:34
night. So if you're listening to this
47:37
on the podcast format in Monday night, what is that the 27th?
47:47
27th. October 27th, I have a live
47:51
stream, Midlife live #10 and there are going to be giveaways.
47:55
I'm not really a giveaway guy, but I've got a couple of cool
47:59
things to give away. Really, really cool things.
48:02
I'm giving away A1 year subscription to Card Ladder.
48:10
Nice. That's an awesome, awesome
48:12
giveaway. Yeah, that's one of the gifts
48:15
that I'm giving away, so. Cool.
48:17
Anything you want to throw out there?
48:20
I'm going to Shriners next Saturday, the November 1st, and
48:24
then I'm doing my first live stream in a long time on
48:26
November 2nd and it's at 9 PMI should probably tell Sammy.
48:30
I should probably confirm with him that I'll be there November
48:33
2nd, 9:00 PM, which is way past my bedtime.
48:35
Craig, you're hosting or guesting?
48:38
I'm guesting. Got it.
48:40
Yeah. Very cool.
48:42
Yeah. This was great, Greg.
48:44
Thanks buddy. Thanks, Oil.
48:48
Thanks, Water. That's right.
48:50
All right. All right, buddy.
48:52
Thanks. Bye.