Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Avoiding Hobby Pitfalls & Setting Collection Rules

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Avoiding Hobby Pitfalls & Setting Collection Rules · 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. Hey there, Mike.
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Now my friend, last time we talked, I was in an airport.
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There was beeping and there was paging and all this sort of
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stuff. But we are back to normal where
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the two of us can just talk and have fun.
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But I had a big trip. I went down to Los Angeles and
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and part of that is going to be the focus of our conversation.
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But let me ask you this, has anything happened recently with
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PSA in the last hour? No, not not that I know of.
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I do want. To say for an hour.
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I do want to say last week, because I had to host for the
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first time and I believe it was the first time I've ever
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actually hosted with somebody backstage.
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Normally I start a show and bring them right in with me.
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And so we start with the music. And when I started it with the
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music and you were backstage, I noticed that you're I can see
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you there. When you host and I'm backstage,
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I can't see you. So I never knew that you could
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see me bopping along to our theme song every time.
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I thought you saw me and always wondered because I'm usually
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back there going and you've never like mentioned how I
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danced to it and I'm like, there you go.
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So, OK, so for those YouTube listeners out there who are
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seeing us right now, yes, when our intro is going, the host can
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see the guest, but not vice versa.
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So that's good information for it's good insider information.
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Now I was in Los Angeles and I got to tell you, I had so much
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fun down there. Great video by the way.
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I appreciate that. You know, anytime you get to
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hang out with Mike Petty and Dave Bauer.
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And Dave's a wonderful wife who makes a, a fine lasagna, I might
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add. Yeah.
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What did she put in? Like, is there some sort of
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special something that she puts in it 'cause there's always
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something it was? Just really good.
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I don't know. I have no idea how she prepared
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it, but it was great. And when I was down there and,
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and I mean, these two guys have two of the better collections.
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I mean, I don't, I know there are a lot of hidden collections
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or a lot of people who don't share their collections that we
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don't know about their collections, that that kind of
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mystery is always cool. But these guys are willing to
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share their collections and they're absolutely wonderful
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collections. And I go and I get to see a big
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chunk of each collection in person and it creates a lot of
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reflection for me. And it makes me go, what is it
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that they've been doing all this time?
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What is the focus that they have been doing to be able to create
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a collection that is this incredible?
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And I've been thinking about that a lot.
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And I wonder how many people are able to actually stay focused in
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what they're doing. And you and I have talked about
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this a little bit, but I want to dig into it a little bit.
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When you see a world class collection like theirs, what
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what, how do they avoid the pitfalls?
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So how are you when, when? Because we see all this eye
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candy all the time. We see it on eBay.
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And the algorithm says, oh, they might like this.
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And they slip something in that's not in the search that we
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go, oh, that's pretty cool. And you go through the CIA
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auction, you see all this awesome stuff.
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How do you avoid buying things that you'll regret?
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Yeah, so I watched that video, obviously, and my first thought
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was, man, it's a shame these guys don't have better
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collections. Well, these poor guys, amazing,
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amazing collections. I mean, Dave's was spectacular.
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Petty's really spoke to me. I'm a little speechless about
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both of them, but Petty's was like next level for me.
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The kind of thing that I like. How do I avoid the pitfalls?
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Well, I don't always, and that's part of being a collector.
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I think. I buy things like early 2000s
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Red Sox refractors that in 20 years I might go, why did I do
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this? But I love them.
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You might think that. No, yeah, I probably will.
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But I love them. And but if I'm going through, I
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have a lot of sub collections that I I love all of them.
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Let's say we're going through CIA collector investor auctions.
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For anybody who doesn't know, I'm going through, and I just
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went through it yesterday at length and I picked out four
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cards that I want to bid on. Not necessarily want to win all
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four of them, but you know, if I'm in on two of them at the
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end, I'll be really happy. And there are a lot of, let's
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say there's 20 cards in there that appeal to me.
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I have to remind myself this doesn't fit in any of my sub
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collections. It's neat and I like it right
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now. And I have to think, will I, if
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I win this and I get it home and I'm explaining this on YouTube
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because this is the the way I kind of judge things.
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Can I explain why I got this? And if I can't, then it doesn't
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fit. And I like to explain on my
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weekly recap, my weekly pick up videos, why I bought things.
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And if I, if I feel like I can't explain it, if it doesn't fit in
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what I do, and if people look at that and say why would he buy
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this, then I shouldn't buy it. Yeah, yeah, that's a good,
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that's a good one. I think of, you know, kind of
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sifting through things when I go down to the river and I'm gold
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panning, I've got these different screens and some of
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the screens are like half inch screens and then there's like
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quarter inch screens. And you get down to where it's
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like a lot of the black sand and stuff where you start to
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actually put that in to actually pan it.
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And there have to be screens to separate what you actually want
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to be, you know, bringing home with you versus what you don't
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want to be bringing home with you.
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And there's so much eye candy. And I love the CIA auctions and
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I love, I love all the auction houses.
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I love eBay. I love, I love looking through
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the stuff. Now, how many of those do I
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actually bid on stuff much different, much different what I
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actually bid on. But I do find myself tempted a
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lot. And, and it sounds to me like
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what you just said is one of the screens is, will somebody else
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say, why did you buy that? That that doesn't fit in the
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collection? If you were to make a couple of
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rules, 2-3 rules like what are like the, the line item rules,
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like, OK, it has to have this or it can't have this.
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Like I, I know a lot of people like Jeremy Lee.
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Jeremy Lee says I don't buy oversized cards.
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That's a rule for him. He doesn't do sticker autos.
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That's another rule for him. So those are two of Jeremy's
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rules of things that are important.
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So what is a rule? Like it has to have X, can't
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have X. What are a couple of the the
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screens that you separate through for when you're looking
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at auctions? When you were at a card show,
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you're like, Nope, it's cool, but it's out because of X.
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What are some of those? Well, as soon as you said what
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are your rules that you would not buy, the first thing that
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came to mind is sticker autos. So Jeremy and I agree on that.
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And I, if somebody shows me a card that has a sticker auto
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that they, they bought and they love it, I have a hard time
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being nice. And of course I am nice, but
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I'm, I'm actually disgusted by sticker autos.
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And so I, I look at them and I'm like, 'cause they look so
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terrible to me. The this just, they look so off
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on the cards that doesn't, it just doesn't fit.
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So I'm sorry, if you have a sticker auto and you show it to
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me, I am going to say, oh, that's awesome.
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That's great for you. Right.
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So sticker autos are out those sticker autos.
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Are out. One of the things that I've
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noticed, I have to say this about sticker autos for a second
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is one of the things that I've started to notice that I don't
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know if you've seen this, but people are taking sticker autos
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off of a newer sticker auto on a card, taking the sticker off of
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that newer card that the sticker auto was put on, and they're
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putting the sticker on an old card.
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Looks terrible. It looks it, it's insane.
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It's it is is insane as sticker autos are that's insane.
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Let me give you an example. I, I don't, I shouldn't
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broadcast as much the stuff that I like because I'm not doing
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myself favors. Because if I turn on two people
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to something I'm hunting for, I'm definitely harming myself.
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But at the end of the day, it's too fun to share this stuff than
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to try to keep secrets of what I'm collecting.
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So I'm on this nostalgia kick. I'm on this Goonies kick.
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One of the things I've been looking at a lot are Star Wars
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autos of my favorite Star Wars characters.
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Doesn't have to be the rookie card of the Star Wars character,
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but R2D2, right? Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, who's
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Chewbacca and I'm blanking on his name now that I'm here.
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C3PO. OK, so I've been looking at
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their autos and they're fairly reasonable.
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And I saw like a rookie R2D2 the other day, which I have R2D2
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rookie that's not autoed. And I'm like it's autoed and I
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look and and it it just said auto and I'm looking at it and
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I'm like that's pretty cool. And then I zoomed in to look at
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the auto cluster to see if it had streaks in it and it was a
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sticker. It was a sticker.
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So that's a thing they're. They're manipulating those
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photos, by the way, to make it look less like a sticker auto.
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They're taking a photo in an in an angle that makes it difficult
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to tell. I saw a Michael Jordan 86 Fleer
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the other day with a sticker auto on it and they, they made
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it very clear that it was a sticker auto and it I was
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appalled that you ruined this card.
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It may have. I don't.
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I don't remember if the card was authenticated.
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It may have been a counterfeit card.
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I don't remember now if it was in like APSA Slab or Beckett, I
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don't remember. But anyway, that's the big one
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like that sticker autos are the big, big no no for me.
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I will not buy. I don't want patch cards.
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Really. I yeah, unless it's from like
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the late 90s, early 2000s, I'm OK with those.
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But they're to me, they're 100% worthless for the last 10 years
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because it's just this, this was not worn by this player, not
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associated with whatever. All that stuff.
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You're going to show me one? So we were talking earlier.
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I I keep interrupting you. I'm so sorry.
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But no, that's. Why?
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It's just so about. I'm a I'm a freak.
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I can't shut my mouth. I love it.
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Early on in our podcast Surface Issues episodes, I talked about
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wanting to get into some modern players and some modern cards of
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some of my favorite players. And I talked specifically about
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Patrick Willis. So this month in the, well, the
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month of November. So last month I bought this
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Patrick Willis. I'm holding it up if you were
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listening. That's a cool one.
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Now we'll see what he did there. He said it was cool even though
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he just bashed him. Well, you interrupted me before.
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I know I did my qualifiers. So this is a rookie card of
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Patrick Willis that is an on card auto, not a sticker auto.
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It's hard to find on card Rookie Autos of Patrick Willis with a
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patch. The window is about an inch by
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an inch, and it's got four colors in it, including what
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appears to be either a name, part of a name, or like a
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shoulder pad number. So OK, sorry.
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So there's my stupid patch. The the qualifier I have is
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unless there's some sort of meaningful something on the
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patch like their number or their their part of their name or part
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of the logo, and I even talk about them sometimes on my
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clearing the bases episodes, I'll show like a kangaroo junior
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patch card. And I'll say I don't like patch
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cards, but this one is sick because it's got the Mariners
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logo. Yeah, in the card.
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OK. So yeah, no, those are cool.
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So sticker autos, patch cards? What about with vintage stuff?
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What's a rule? What does it need to have?
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So, OK, we've eliminated a couple of centering.
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Now what is quality enough centering for you?
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So is, is 6535, is that a centered vintage card for you?
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No, no. No.
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And I have some that I got early on and I look at them and I
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think I should sell this and buy one that's better centered.
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Will you you think do that? Nah, I'm too lazy.
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Too lazy or is it the cost associated with it?
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Because it's like when you have a house, you know, and, and you
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go, I'm going to upgrade my house and you're like, Oh my
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gosh, you got to pay the real fees.
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I got to pay moving fees. I got to pay closing costs.
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I'm going to come out so far behind just to upgrade by 300
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square feet. Is it worth it?
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Is it like that, or is it that you're actually lazy?
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I, I don't have the time to sell and it's rare for me to.
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I don't know. But if you weren't to sell your
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cards, why don't you tell us who we sell our cards to, Chris?
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Sewell baseball card collector, investor, dealer, in that order
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is the best and sponsors surface issues and you know you just
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e-mail sewellsportscards@gmail.com and
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tell him what you have. Send him some photos if you want
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to. He'll ask you for them if you
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don't, and he'll make you a fair offer.
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He is the collector dealer, meaning he is a collector.
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He understands us and he's very, very fair.
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He will explain to you the offer that he gave you, why he's got
15:46
offering you what he's offering to you, and you'll never
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question whether he gave you a good deal or not.
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And let me also add that in the last week or week and a half
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week ish, week and 1/2 when we're recording this, our new
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sports card clubhouse website is actually has launched, which we
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should have led with that. I mean, what are we talking
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about? But, but it is launched and on
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there, there is a landing page that has a picture of Mr. Sewell
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and contact information. So another way, if you've
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forgotten already Chris Sewell's website, go to
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sportscardclubhouse.com and look at partners and you will see all
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of that information about Chris Sewell there as well.
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More about the website here in a second.
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But I, I want, I, I keep interrupting you.
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I'm, I'm awful at this. I'm awful, I'm an awful
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interviewer 'cause I keep interrupting you.
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So centered you said 6040 is 60? 6040 is the worst I would take,
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yeah. OK so 60-40 cents.
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So the cards got to be centered. The card can't be a sticker auto
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and most patch autos are out. What else?
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What? What are some of the other rules
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for you? The rules that's I I don't love
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oversized cost cards, but I would never like I have a bunch
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up on my wall. I have a special shelf for
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oversized stuff and I also collect like programs and stuff.
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So I would never say no oversized things.
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Those are really my 2 hard and fast rules.
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And I'm looking at cars that fit in my collection.
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They have to fit in the collection, they have to be well
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centered. Really. 5545 and no sticker
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autos. I'm OK, I not to interrupt, but
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you said it has to fit in the collection.
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What does that mean? That's that's a big qualifier
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that you haven't qualified. What does fit in the collection
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mean? Well, I have probably 20
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different collections. That's sub collections within my
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collection, the biggest one being rookie cards.
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I also love autographed. I'm sorry, Hall of Fame rookie
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cards, autographed Hall of Fame rookie cards.
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And then I have other sub collections within the Red Sox.
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I want Red Sox autographed rookie cards, Red Sox Hall of
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Fame rookie cards, things like that.
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I same thing with Celtics, but to a lesser degree.
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Same thing with basketball to a much lesser degree.
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I'm much, much, much more focused on baseball.
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I want Red Sox early 2000s, Red Sox refractors and late 90s as
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well. I want, I wanted, but I'll still
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need one more. 2/19/93 Finest Red Sox refractor.
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I still need the Clemens I bid on another one.
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Was that two nights ago and I lost it?
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I think, yeah, it might have been last night.
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It was last night or the night before, yeah.
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Yeah, I bid strong and I lost it.
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Somebody overpaid. Well, I shouldn't say they
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overpaid. They paid more than I was
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expecting them to pay. Yeah, that those are great
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rules. I love explaining what it
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actually means to fit the collection.
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And the fact that you have sub collections I can definitely
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identify with. For me, you know, I've got my
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nostalgia cards, like my childhood cards I wanted.
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I got the things I liked as a kid that I couldn't have as a
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kid. I've got, you know, my different
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pirate card collection. I got I, I'm not, I don't think
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I'm as defined as you as to what my sub collections are.
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But yeah, I think those are some good parameters.
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And then there are times that I, I have to check myself where I
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see something I go, that's really cool and I go, wait a
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second. It doesn't do this, It doesn't
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do this, but it does do that. It does do that.
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It doesn't fit as much as I want it.
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I'm not going to purchase it. I I think part of my 2026 goals
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is I need to. Like literally write down what
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my parameters are so that I can keep myself honest and hold
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myself accountable at times because I tend to just
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gerrymander in a new thing when there is an opportunity to see a
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card that is cool and I'm like, I could add that to the
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collection. I just whoop I just changed the
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rules and loop it into the group, you know what I mean?
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Sure. OK, there's two things that have
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have popped into my head since we've started talking that I I
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want to bring up. Let's start with the hobby
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spectrum.com. So this is Jeremy Lee.
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He announced last week, depending on when you're
20:59
listening to this, he announced it.
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I guess it would have been something like December is 6th
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maybe that he has a new venture he's doing.
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It's a website and it's basically a personality quiz for
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how you collect and what type of collector you are.
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And he initially reached out to a few people in particular about
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it. He reached out to you, you took
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it, the quiz. It's several questions and then
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I took it and it, it kind of puts you on this continuum from
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one to 100 on what type of collector you are.
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And you, you scored a 19 out of 1 to 100.
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You scored a 19. I did you see what I scored?
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18. 18 Now that would be hard to do.
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Even if we were cheating off of each other, it would be hard to
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be that close. Now, what do you think about the
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the concept and what do you think about your score?
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Is that what you thought you would have cause 'cause I
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actually scored differently than I thought I was going to score,
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which is interesting. Were you expecting your score to
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be about a 20, which I think puts you in the category, or the
22:26
bucket of a nostalgia collector? Is the category that he called
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it right? Yep, nostalgic is what it's
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called. Is that what you were expecting?
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Were you expecting to be in Nostalgic 19?
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I expected to be in the nostalgic bucket at first when I
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first, when he first started telling me about it, because he
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called me about it last week and he was telling me and I thought,
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oh, I'll be way low. I'll be single digits.
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What what ended up being the purest category?
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But then as I started reading through the questions, the
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questions, I got two or three questions and I was like, I'm
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not going to be a purist because I do care about the value of my
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cards. That is important to me.
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I don't want to buy cards. I don't want to spend $50,000 on
23:16
cards over the course of a decade and then have them be
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worth 0. That's, that sounds bad.
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I mean, it's a hobby, but I do I that's not, I'm not explaining
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that well enough. I hope that they go up, I guess
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is the best way to say it. If they're worth nothing at the
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end, that's fine, but I hope that they go up.
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Does that distinction make sense to?
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You. Oh yeah, for sure.
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There's a big difference between buying things you think will go
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up, buying things that you genuinely don't care.
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Just like when you spend $70 on a round of golf and no matter
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how you shoot you, you had the experience and they're being
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some sort of hybrid. And I think that's part of the
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point of the whole thing, is how much does the value care?
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Does it mean zero or does it mean something?
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Or does it mean a lot? Or is it everything?
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I don't pick cards out because I think they're going to go up.
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I don't pick cards out because I I want them to go up, but when I
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think about my collection I hope it's worth as much if not more
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in 20 or 30 years. Why?
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Because that. 'D be great, what a bonus.
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Why does it matter? What a bonus I'm not.
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Saying you're wrong. No, no, let's let that because
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we, we, I mean, I'm an 18, you're an 19.
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But why? Why would that be great?
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Because I'll have collected for 20 or 30 years, enjoyed these
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for all these years, and then at the end you're going to tell me
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this card's worth 10 times what you paid for it 25 years ago.
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Your collection is worth more or as much as what you paid for it,
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inflation adjusted. I'll be thrilled.
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How crazy would that be? And so when I think about it, I
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think it would be awesome or a dope, as the kids say.
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Oh it would be dope. Dude it would be dope.
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Dope bro. If when I go to sell these to
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Chris Sewell in 30 whatever years, I don't know if I will
25:33
sell anything if they were worth more.
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Yeah. And there are some people who
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say they don't care at all. And there are some people who
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say, well, the whole point of the hobby for them is to be
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targeting things that are going to go up that then their errors
25:58
can benefit from. And that's part of the, the
26:01
allure of it. And, and I don't think that
26:05
there's a wrong way to do it. I, there are people who do think
26:09
there's a wrong way to do it. There are people who say if you
26:12
don't care if your cards are worth $0.00, then what's your
26:16
deal? And there are people who say
26:18
you're only buying stuff that you think is going to go up.
26:22
They say what's your deal? I genuinely, I don't have any
26:26
problem with anywhere in there. I I'm OK with it.
26:30
Some people do have issues with some of the spots on the
26:34
spectrum, and I feel like our Youtubeish community, our social
26:42
media community to a certain extent kind of looks down on the
26:46
people who if you care more about the value than not, then
26:52
those people are almost looked down upon a little bit like, oh,
26:55
how dare you be a participant in this hobby.
26:58
Who cares about the value or you care about a substantial amount.
27:03
That's not OK. Like that's wrong.
27:06
I don't really understand that. Yeah, I don't either.
27:09
I think. I think it it's crazy.
27:14
Not in like a you're crazy. It's something that I I would
27:17
never buy prospect cards to gamble my money.
27:24
But if other people do that and they do it because they're
27:27
hoping to hit big, more power to.
27:31
I'm risk averse. I don't have the stomach to do
27:35
something like that, but I would I would love to watch a channel
27:40
that talks about that and they talk about the the prospecting
27:45
and the buying process and the selling process, the wins and
27:48
losses. If somebody started up that kind
27:50
of a channel and did it well and did it honestly, I would love
27:54
that. Chris Sewell does some of that
27:58
in his episodes where he talks about I bought this and I sent
28:01
it in for grading and so. I don't mean that way.
28:05
OK. Just just the the whole prospect
28:09
of the. I'm buying a, a Braden Mcjazzy
28:13
card. I should have made that name up
28:15
because everybody's named Braden nowadays.
28:17
You, you know, as a, as a high school teacher, Braden Kaden,
28:20
whatever. I bought this Braden whatever
28:24
card. He's 17 years old.
28:27
It's his first Bowman. He was just signed by the
28:30
Yankees and he's in winter, I don't know the winter ball and
28:38
he's five years away from ever being called up.
28:42
And now I'm just waiting for that next big bit of news on him
28:46
to hit. And once it does, I'm going to
28:48
sell or I'm going to wait until he gets called up.
28:51
And that really, really intrigues me.
28:53
I don't want to do it because I don't have the stomach for it,
28:56
but it's it's really interesting.
28:58
Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. I agree.
29:02
And I, I, I, I'm fascinated by it.
29:05
And, and to a certain extent, some people are doing that with
29:08
grading of I'm going to send in these 10 cards that are worth 20
29:14
bucks. And if they get a nine, they're
29:18
worth, you know, 302520. And if they get a 10, they're
29:23
worth 1000. So if I can just get one to hit,
29:27
then it pays for the whole order and I come out ahead and then
29:30
they do these reveals and they're devastated when they're
29:33
all eights and nines or they hit three 10s.
29:36
Who was it? Just did one the other day.
29:38
Oh, it was a Brutus. Brutus.
29:42
I'm going to say his channel name wrong Brutus on baseball.
29:46
And he had sent in a bunch of of Jeff Kent rookie cards.
29:50
Lee, Rookie. Cards.
29:51
Sure, yeah. And, and he posted this video
29:55
like the day of the Hall of Fame thing and he had sent in a
30:00
bunch. He's like, if I could get three
30:01
10s, he pays for the whole grading order.
30:05
And he sent in like 15 cards and he had like five 10's and then a
30:09
bunch of nines and then like an 8.
30:11
And they were all like cards he pulled out of packs.
30:14
And it was really interesting. Like he did a good job with it,
30:17
but it doesn't I I wouldn't have done that, but it was still
30:21
interesting to watch. I love those videos.
30:24
I watched those videos, they're very interesting if they're done
30:27
well. If you get 0 tens now we know
30:31
you can just call PSA and say hey I want more 10's and they'll
30:34
change them for you. You can.
30:37
These stories are just starting to come out.
30:39
I have another one that came to me after I recorded today,
30:43
somebody posted on Instagram, it's from 2020.
30:47
So it's a little less relevant because they had a different
30:50
president for PSA at the time. But the president reached out to
30:53
this guy, he has the emails and it said, hey, I'd like to help
30:57
you. I know you had some complaints
30:58
about your order. And they ended up turning a
31:00
bunch of his nines into 10's and they're not down grading any.
31:04
By the way, Greg, they're not saying, hey, we re reviewed and
31:08
we upgraded 7 nines to 10, but we also in this re review, we
31:14
had to downgrade 6 nines to eights.
31:19
One of these days we'll talk about the time in 2002 when my
31:26
dad got APSA reveal back of about 100 cards when it was
31:30
about $6 a card to grade, and how a ton of the cards came back
31:36
as sevens. About 60 of them came back
31:39
sevens out of 100, and my dad called the PSA offices and said
31:43
I'd like to talk to Joe Orlando. And they said, OK, hold on.
31:47
And they patched him through to Joe Orlando.
31:49
My dad talked to Joe Orlando and my dad sent a bunch of cards
31:53
back. And let's just say some of the
31:55
grades changed. Yes, this is a real thing we'll
32:00
have. We'll have to do a whole episode
32:02
on it sometime. Wow.
32:04
Oh yeah, we're lots. Let's get Coach Miller in.
32:08
We'll have him in as a guest. We could absolutely do that.
32:14
So yes, that that this is not a new phenomenon.
32:17
This is something that has been happening under multiple eras of
32:21
leadership, which puts into question all of the grades for
32:26
all of the eras, but that's another story for another day.
32:30
I do have one last thing I want to hit you with and that's with
32:33
our new website that has launched.
32:36
We are going to have ongoing polls on there and our first
32:41
poll, which was like the ballot boxes were being stuffed.
32:48
I actually to be honestly don't, I don't think I know for sure
32:51
the results, but it was what is the best podcast out there live
32:57
stream? What is the best live stream out
32:58
there? I'm sorry.
32:59
And there were a lot of options and there were a lot of votes
33:03
that happened. And we are now on our second
33:06
poll and our second poll right now is what is your favorite
33:11
auction house? And there are a lot of options
33:15
there. And I haven't looked again, I
33:19
vote early and then I don't look.
33:22
But if anybody out there is listening to this and they want
33:26
to be a participant in our weekly, at least weekly, maybe
33:30
bi weekly polls, we will be talking about them on here.
33:36
The auction house thing, one of the reasons I think we wanted to
33:40
have auction houses as an option is because of a lot of the
33:45
conversations happening about the auction houses.
33:48
And I think people are finally starting to realize that not all
33:53
auction houses have rules that are the same and not all auction
33:58
houses have rules that are bitter friendly.
34:02
They might be very heavily auction house and consignor
34:07
friendly. Any thoughts on on the polls on
34:13
the 1st 2 polls and or the auction house poll that's up at
34:19
the moment 'cause this is I think this is an important
34:21
topic. I like the polls cause what it
34:24
does is it gives it gives us an opportunity to see what the
34:28
community actually feels. Well, I stuffed the ballot box
34:31
for your live stream. And did you really?
34:33
I did, yeah. And just to prove that.
34:38
Not not just to prove, but this is an example that shows that we
34:42
can't even rig this for ourselves because you, I think
34:44
you came in 3rd place. Did I?
34:46
I think we didn't actually get the results because it was a
34:50
kind of. Hazard somewhere.
34:52
We have them somewhere. It was a kind of haphazard first
34:55
poll, right? We we didn't know how long we
34:57
were going to have it up for and then like the next day was just
35:00
gone. We probably I'm sure Adam has
35:02
them. Adam splendid sports behind the
35:04
scenes doing an amazing job. But right now the best auction
35:09
house is up and CIA is smoking the other auction houses.
35:13
They are running away with it. Do you?
35:16
Think why do you now? Now, I like CIA and, and again,
35:20
I know we have to preface this, CIA is a sponsor of your
35:25
channel, your personal channel, not the sports card clubhouse.
35:28
For the record, they are a sponsor of Junk Wax Hero.
35:32
They are a sponsor of midlife sports cards and I like them
35:37
very much. And and as anybody who knows us
35:40
knows, we've had opportunities to have sponsors from more
35:46
companies than we've taken. We only take the sponsorships
35:49
when it's a company that we actually believe in and CIA are
35:53
companies that we are both proud to associate ourselves with.
35:58
Do you think, do you think that the community is starting to get
36:06
fed up and they realize that CIA is a bitter friendly, a a
36:13
collector friendly auction house?
36:17
Is it that, I mean, what do you, what do you think's going on
36:22
with auction houses in the community right now?
36:23
Like where is everybody at with this?
36:26
Yeah, I think we have to remember that our community, the
36:28
vintage YouTube community community is very, very small.
36:32
And we think we believe that we're in this huge community,
36:35
but it's it's very small. And so the the well informed
36:43
vintage collector on YouTube, which all of us are, are it's
36:50
really seeing, you're seeing what's happening with other
36:53
auction houses, the shield bidding and things like that.
36:57
And you also see that these trustworthy, I believe were
37:01
trustworthy Greg Youtubers are using, we are legitimately using
37:07
CIA every single month. I bid on cards every single
37:11
month. I have one bid in already and
37:13
I'm planning on bidding on three other items.
37:16
And I'm, I would never take a sponsorship for a product that I
37:21
don't believe in. And so you're seeing these
37:25
people, we have built up the trust.
37:28
You have built an amazing community of people that know
37:31
you are a legitimate collector. A the things that you're saying
37:36
are legitimate. You spent years building up this
37:38
trust with your community. And they, they trust that.
37:42
And when you start using CIA, when you start using card
37:44
ladder, they're saying if Greg's, if Greg's doing it, I
37:47
want to. Same thing with me, with
37:48
Pennyslever. I'm a legit believer.
37:53
Yeah, No, there, there's, there is a lot of truth to that and I
37:57
take that seriously. I, that means there's a certain
38:01
amount of pressure that comes with that for me where I don't
38:06
want to associate with somebody that then we find out.
38:11
I mean, I mean, I could start dropping names on different
38:14
companies and different people who have suddenly fallen off,
38:17
you know, out of favor recently. But I, I have to be very
38:24
confident in not just the product or the service, but the
38:28
people behind it in order for me to associate it with it.
38:32
And, and it's one of the reasons that I didn't take a sponsor
38:36
until basically three years into my channel.
38:39
I know people think I was fun. There were times people said
38:41
you're sponsored by Ash. Ash is paying you.
38:44
I'm like, no, Penny Sleaver is paying you.
38:46
No, they're not. They're not.
38:48
Even they should be. Well, whatever.
38:51
But there's, there are a lot of people who claimed that they
38:54
thought I was being paid by, you know, market move.
38:58
There's a lot of things. I've had two sponsors and I
39:01
waited is if it wasn't three years, it was pretty darn close
39:06
to, I mean almost to the day three years before I took a
39:09
sponsor because it was important that people didn't see me as a
39:14
guy who was just, I wanted to gain your trust before I wanted
39:19
people to actually actually trust me.
39:22
I had to earn trust. And, and I feel like by now
39:27
people know I am who I am. I'll say things that I believe
39:32
occasionally I'll put my foot in my mouth when I do, I'll
39:35
apologize for it. But at the end of the day, I
39:39
think I'm, I think I said, who did?
39:42
I was talking to a friend yesterday and he was, he was
39:44
joking about Greg. You're a bad guy, you know, I
39:47
don't know if I can trust you. And I said to him, I'm the guy
39:52
you want your your sister to marry.
39:55
And he goes, I agree, but I don't have a sister.
39:58
You're too good for my sister. Yeah, so.
40:02
I'm kidding, Krista. I'm kidding.
40:05
I genuinely mean that. Like I like, I, I, I want to be
40:09
someone I'm proud of. I want to look in the mirror and
40:12
go, that's a good person there, you know.
40:15
And so when I say I really like Chris Hoge and I really like
40:23
Josh and I really like Christina and I really believe in their
40:26
product, I do, is it perfect? No.
40:29
Do they make mistakes? Yes, but are they good people?
40:33
And I believe in what they're doing.
40:36
I do. And same with Jeremy and the
40:39
whole team over at CIA. You know, again, Chris is a part
40:43
of that and Theo's now a part of that.
40:45
And those are good people. They're great people that I'm
40:49
proud to be affiliated with. And we're not.
40:51
We should, Dang it, we should bill them for the last 10
40:54
minutes. Yeah, so and yeah, we're, we're
41:01
open and honest about our sponsors too.
41:04
Yeah, I'm not going to tell you how much they pay us.
41:05
It's it's not anywhere near as much as it could be if whatever.
41:09
Anybody thinks if we were? Yeah, if we were here for the
41:13
money, it would be a lot more. But you and I both, when I told
41:17
you my strategy for sponsorships, you were like,
41:20
yes, because I, I want a sponsorship to last a long time.
41:24
I don't want to be on the bubble when they're starting to cut
41:28
marketing expenses and what's starting to look, I want them to
41:30
be like, this is somebody I want for a long time because I have
41:34
very few. And somebody once told me,
41:37
somebody who sponsored me once said you should be charging way
41:39
more for your sponsorships. And I explained to him, I don't
41:43
want you to ever question cutting that check to me.
41:46
I wanted to be so little that you never questioned me.
41:49
And when you're ready to cut marketing, I'm a no brainer.
41:54
One last analogy and then we'll sign off.
41:57
We had a rental house for three or four years.
42:01
And you know, when when you're renting, you have you have
42:04
overhead, you have expenses, you have, you know, different costs
42:07
and stuff. And I said to my wife, I said, I
42:10
want to charge so little that people are fighting to be our
42:16
renter because it's such a great deal.
42:19
And they're not going to call me just because, you know, the door
42:24
is squeaking because they're like, are we going to call him
42:26
when we're getting a great deal here because the door is
42:29
squeaking. Let's just go buy our own WD40
42:31
and spray it. And it was beautiful.
42:34
Like, I mean, I mean, we had more people that wanted it that
42:38
we had choice of lots of lots of great people.
42:42
And it was, it was a cash cow that eventually we ended up
42:46
selling because largely because that allowed us to take some of
42:50
the proceeds from it to pay our house off.
42:53
That's one of the ways we were able to pay our house off when
42:56
we did. And but yeah, I mean, you want,
43:01
you want to provide more for somebody, for a customer or for
43:07
a partner, then then they are giving you, then you become
43:11
indispensable. And that's that's kind of my
43:14
same thought. All right, my friend, 43 minutes
43:18
in another one in the books, I mean surface issues, believe it
43:23
or not, we are like 3 months, three months of surface issues
43:28
in the books once a week. This has been fun.
43:31
I look forward to it. And again, let let me just say
43:36
this, the website is bare bones right now.
43:39
There is a lot of stuff we are planning to add.
43:42
We kind of rushed the launch so that we could start doing some
43:45
year end polls. So there are definitely some
43:48
things that are still in the works.
43:50
So continue to check in at sportscardclubhouse.com to see
43:54
what is being added, to check out the polls, which we will
43:58
continually refer to in these weekly episodes.
44:05
I, I was just talking to Mike before we went on air about a
44:08
new kind of semi regular episode that I'm going to start doing on
44:13
just the podcast. So there, there's a lot going
44:17
on. We're having fun, that's the
44:18
key. As long as it's fun, we'll keep
44:20
doing it. And it's been a lot of fun.
44:23
It's been great getting to have more opportunity to get to know
44:26
you, my friend, and for us to grow closer.
44:30
And each time we talk, we're less strangers and more
44:35
brothers, right? Absolutely.
44:38
All right, that's another one. Let us know down below how we
44:43
did, but also go visit sportscardclubhouse.com.
45:04
Birthday tomorrow. Do you have Is she getting a car
45:07
or does she have her license? What's?
45:10
We got her a new phone tonight.