Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Chris Sewall & Mike Talk About SGC Increasing Turnaround Times & Their Future!

Transcript

Chris Sewall & Mike Talk About SGC Increasing Turnaround Times & Their Future! · Sports Card Clubhouse

0:01
Hey everybody. It is Mike.
0:03
I'm joined by Chris Sewell. Chris, how are you today?
0:06
Good man, how are you? Good.
0:08
We this is this week in sports cards and I don't have an intro,
0:13
I don't have an outro. There's no music yet, but I I
0:15
gotta make it. I'm just too lazy and I'll I'll
0:18
say too busy, but it's mostly laziness.
0:20
OK. And Greg's really good at making
0:22
those things and so I'll probably just wait until he gets
0:24
annoyed with me and makes 1 for me.
0:26
Oh, so he did he make the like 2 guys across the country, you
0:30
know that that was his his jam. OK.
0:33
And you just, you just approved it.
0:35
No, I didn't need to. I was just like, well, I guess I
0:37
did 'cause he said, is this cool?
0:39
And I said, that's amazing. Yeah, good job.
0:44
So we are reversing the spin of the earth today.
0:48
This is huge because normally we post this week in sports cards
0:53
on Saturdays and this surface issues on Tuesdays.
0:57
We're going to flip it because on surface issues we broke some
1:01
news and I wanted to talk to you about that.
1:04
So on surface issues, Greg received an e-mail that a
1:09
customer forwarded to him, an SGC customer forwarded to him
1:14
and SGC told him. He emailed SGC and said hey,
1:20
you've had my cards for like 85 business days, where are they?
1:24
What's happening with them? And they replied to him saying
1:27
we're actually just about to increase our turn around times,
1:30
reported turn around times and you will have yours back within
1:35
the next. We'll have yours graded in the
1:36
next three to six business days, which puts them right about 90
1:41
business days for cards they received 90 business days ago or
1:47
something. The numbers are, I'm a little
1:49
sketchy on the numbers because I just saw it for the first time,
1:52
but maybe it's 75 business days, something crazy like that.
1:57
And if you think about where SGC was, they were at 5 to 10
2:02
business days before they were purchased by collectors 2 years
2:06
ago, a little over two years ago now.
2:07
And then they kind of hovered around the 10 to 20, maybe 30
2:11
business days and they've been steadily going up.
2:14
Where do you think this is going for SGC?
2:19
It's not not going in the right direction.
2:20
That's obviously the case when when the guy submitted it 90
2:25
days ago. Do you know what the stated time
2:27
at that point was? I think it was like, I think it
2:30
was 40 to 50 business days at that time.
2:34
OK, so they're way over from the stated, yeah, I mean SGC what
2:38
what what can you say here? They're they're down and they're
2:42
all the metrics are bad, right? Their numbers are way down,
2:46
their turn around times are way up, their card sales are way
2:50
down. It's just sort of a sad state of
2:52
affair if you're a big SGC fan. I was never a massive fan, but I
2:56
like them. I have an order at them right
2:57
now. I just sent it a week ago.
2:58
I didn't know about the increase, so I guess I'll be
3:01
getting them back. You know, when my son graduates
3:05
from college or so. But let's.
3:08
Just be clear, how old is your son?
3:10
10 I hope he goes to college anyway, but yeah so yeah, no,
3:18
not not not a good sign for SGC and it's been it's been a
3:21
downward spot for them for a while now When when when were
3:23
they purchased two years ago or a year and a half ago it.
3:25
Was Leap day 2024. Leap Day 2020 Leap Day you you
3:30
know that from yeah, interest. Oh, so it's two years ago?
3:34
Two years ago plus. Just over 2 years ago.
3:36
Yeah, OK. I mean, yeah.
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months free. So Greg, Greg actually put out a
4:24
video on Friday showing small sample size and he he's very
4:28
clear small sample size that the the gap between the values or
4:33
the selling prices of PSA and SGC cards might actually be
4:37
shrinking a little bit or at least not growing.
4:40
What are you seeing in your business as a card dealer with
4:45
SGC slabs? No, it's interesting.
4:47
Did he, did he, how much, how much?
4:49
I didn't see that video. How much data did he put into
4:52
that or have have for that? He was looking at certain iconic
4:56
cards like Hank Aaron 1954 tops PSA 4 versus SGC 455 tops, Sandy
5:05
Koufax PSA 4 versus SGC 4. And he was looking at, you know,
5:10
the the last three sales now compared to a year ago, compared
5:15
to a year before that and looking at how much of a
5:19
difference there was then versus there is now.
5:22
And the from 24 to 25, the gap grew big time.
5:29
Like SGC might have even been in the lead in some of them and PSA
5:33
gained significantly and they still did on some of them.
5:36
But in some of them SGC gained quite a bit.
5:39
And again, extremely small sample size, very fairly
5:43
anecdotal, but still very interesting results overall.
5:47
And so I wanted to just kind of add your anecdotal thoughts on
5:51
this and and you know where I assume you're selling some SGC,
5:55
although far fewer than PSA. No, and my my anecdotal is
6:00
modern SGC is just plummeted like a a, a a PSA9 versus an SGC
6:06
9 is like it is just not even. There's not even a, a comparable
6:10
SGC 9 used to sort of compete with the PSA 9, maybe a little
6:14
little under. Now it's it's way down in
6:17
vintage. The category Greg's mentioning,
6:20
I kind of agree with him. Like a, a, a mid grade, you
6:23
know, 50 to $100 vintage card probably is pretty close at APSA
6:28
5 versus an SGC 5, you know, 69 Hank Aaron or something.
6:33
Those are probably pretty close. But when you get at the high
6:36
end, I think PS as increased the gap.
6:41
And yeah, so the IT sort of varies by category, but modern
6:44
is where modern is where you really see the drop in SGC
6:47
values. In my opinion.
6:48
I think there's still a a collector base for vintage SGC
6:51
as there always has been and hopefully always will be.
6:53
But modern like there's like just no no reason to do anything
6:56
modern in SGC at the moment. Yeah, I don't know why anybody
7:00
would want a modern card in an SGC slab.
7:04
It doesn't look right to me it. Oh, it looks, yeah, absolutely.
7:08
Big war, perfect in an SGC slab. Vintage, very good Modern It
7:14
just looks weird. Especially like Chrome cards and
7:17
refractors. They just don't look right.
7:19
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.
7:22
That's always kind of been the case, but I think, I don't know,
7:25
the values still were, were kind of reasonable back back not too
7:28
long ago. But now it's like when I get a
7:30
like when I get shipped to collection and it's all modern
7:32
SGC slabs. I like, I know I'm gonna be, I
7:35
have to, I always prep it. I'm like just so you know,
7:37
probably gonna be offering a lot less than you think here 'cause
7:40
this is just really hard stuff to to sell and move.
7:43
Nobody wants it at the at the moment, yeah.
7:47
And how much do you consider when you Let's say you've had a
7:50
modern SGC 9 and it's it's $1000 card and APSA 9, do you consider
7:59
cracking it and submitting or selling it raw or is it better
8:02
just to sell it in the SGC 9? I very rarely crack I've just
8:07
I've just had I've done it a little in the past I just never
8:09
have any luck with it. The only time I ever crack is
8:11
when I truly think a grade is like wildly low but no.
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And if something is an SGC 9 I probably wouldn't crack it
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because probably it wouldn't get apsa 9.
8:21
PSA don't give out good grades anymore.
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At. Least in my experience.
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And it and it takes eight months.
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I mean, what am I gonna do? Yeah, yeah, but nowadays raw
8:33
sells for PSA 9 value a lot of the time.
8:37
Oh, you're saying like crack it out and and and sell it raw?
8:40
Yeah, I guess you could. I, I I don't like the process of
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cracking. There's always a risk of damage
8:45
and I don't know I'd I'd personally rather have a modern
8:48
A card in SGC 9 than raw. But.
8:51
Yeah. For selling purposes, it's
8:54
easier to sell the the buyer has less options to complain, those
8:59
sort of things. Yeah.
9:03
So SGC up to significantly higher and if they're at 90
9:09
business days, let's just theoretically say that I'm right
9:12
at the 90 business day number on orders they received three
9:16
months ago. And they could they be at 110
9:21
business days on orders that are coming out now.
9:24
And we don't know because they haven't announced yet as of the
9:26
time of this recording what their new business days turn
9:29
around time is. But it feels like the industry
9:32
as a whole is moving more towards, yeah, you'll get your
9:36
cards back eventually. At some point.
9:39
Well, so you you don't. You stopped using PSAA while
9:42
ago, right? 13 months ago. 13 months ago and
9:45
you occasionally use CGC. Is that your?
9:48
I just got a CGC order back and I have another one going to the
9:51
CGCJSA and the order I sent to them in February took 50
9:57
business days. I think if I remember correctly
10:00
it was it was between 45 and 55 business days and but that was
10:04
dual graded. So they're authenticating and
10:08
grading like hard and authenticating and grading the
10:12
autograph which is 2 I assume two different departments
10:15
between CGC and JSA. Yeah, probably.
10:18
I don't know what PS as turn around time is on those, but
10:21
it's 160 business days at least. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot.
10:32
That's my analysis. There's that's the perfect title
10:36
for our for this video, that's a lot.
10:38
That's a lot. No, I mean, they're all they're
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all, they're all bad. And like we saw this during were
10:43
you? Were you?
10:44
You were were you weren't grading stuff during COVID, were
10:46
you? I didn't get back into
10:50
collecting until late 2020 and CGC was starting up in like
10:56
March of 2021 if I remember correctly and I gathered enough
11:03
to do a bulk submission to CSG at the time.
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Remember they were CSG with the green labels and I sent off.
11:12
I don't, I don't remember 25 cards maybe for a bulk and that.
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So that was my first foray into grading and I didn't grade
11:22
anything anywhere else for maybe a year.
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And then I would grade with PSA and SGC, Yeah.
11:31
Yeah, I, I talk about this in my videos a lot and I, I don't
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understand what people are grading.
11:36
Like, to me, the, the, the, the, the proposition on grading is so
11:40
bad right now that it takes so long.
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Any company you use takes so long.
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They're super strict with their, with their grades.
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Like what are like the, what are people sending in?
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Like? I like, I, there's so few cards
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that I get in where it makes sense to send it in just from
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like a basic financial simple money evaluation.
12:00
It just doesn't make any sense. It's gonna take eight months.
12:03
Cost me $30 and I'm probably not gonna get a good grade on it.
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Why would anyone submit that card unless it's like a, an
12:09
absolute must you gotta killer, you know, you know, Nolan Ryan
12:12
rookie, OK, but like, why would you submit anything less?
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And, but yet the grading numbers keep going up and up and up.
12:18
What are people doing now? I know a lot of it's Pokémon and
12:22
that's just a whole different equation, I guess 'cause it
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sounds like it's so easy to get a 10 and you get a lot of $20
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tens that, you know, $20 cards that become $100.
12:33
And so it's, it's an easy 10 and you spend 30 bucks and yeah,
12:37
you've made a, so it makes sense in Pokémon.
12:38
But on sports, even sports cards are going up or they're flat,
12:41
right? Sports cards have been pretty
12:43
fairly flat or trickling up the last six months, would you say?
12:46
Yeah, yeah, that sounds accurate.
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How? How?
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Is it not dropped? I don't know.
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I don't know what people are sending in.
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I think a lot of it is the chase to be the first person grading a
12:55
certain card out of a certain set.
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So if 2025 tops, Chrome football comes out, you and you open your
13:03
packs and you send it off to PSA immediately, usually through a
13:07
breaker, right? Or through eBay.
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And then you just add on and I'll pay 50 bucks to have this
13:12
graded. And if you send enough of them,
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110 could pay for the entire order and profit.
13:20
Or let's say you send 20 and four of them come back 10's and
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you sell them immediately because those are the first
13:27
Chrome cards from a certain set out and people are looking for
13:30
those to be graded. There are a lot of slab
13:33
collectors out there who don't care about having cards.
13:38
Well, I mean, they obviously care about having cards, but
13:40
they want their cards slabbed. And so they're only looking for
13:44
certain sets and certain cards to be in APSA slab.
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And once those hit the market for the first time, they'll sell
13:51
for like 4X what they eventually settle for.
13:54
So APSA 10 might sell for $1000 if it's the first one, and then
14:00
eventually they settle into a steady of 200 to $250.
14:05
Right, agreed. I agreed, but still like the
14:07
proposition doesn't exist anymore when it takes eight
14:09
months now to to get stuff back or, or with CGC, it takes what,
14:14
what do we say? 90 days or sorry, SGC, it takes
14:17
90 business days. That's what, 5 months?
14:20
You know, being first to market on a tops Chrome product that
14:23
just released five months from now doesn't strike me as a good
14:26
business model. I, I just, I don't it, it to me,
14:29
there's just so few cards worth sending in and yet the numbers
14:31
keep going up. I I I'm baffled.
14:33
But don't you think this has the potential to be good for the
14:36
hobby where other people are talking?
14:39
People all over the, you know, collectors all over are talking
14:43
about tag and they're talking about AGS and they're talking
14:46
about C3. And are any of these companies
14:48
legitimate? That's questionable, but people
14:51
are talking about them. People are trying other things.
14:53
And if we can get one of these companies and CGC being in there
14:57
too, if we can get one or two of these companies to rise up and
15:01
be legitimate and be not a contender, obviously you're not
15:04
going to compete with PSA, but could that be good for us as
15:09
collectors? And I know you're not much of A
15:11
collector anymore, but you appreciate collectors and you
15:14
think like a collector. Oh, it's one would 100% be good.
15:18
I, I assume, I assume you would, you would want that?
15:21
I would definitely want. I definitely want that.
15:23
The the monopoly is annoying. I would love there to be 10
15:27
grading companies that are all credible.
15:29
Or maybe not. Maybe that's not realistic, but
15:31
5 should be realistic. There should be plenty of room
15:34
for 5:00 or so. Right now there's realistically
15:38
2. I know it on the label.
15:39
There's four. I guess if you want to throw A
15:41
tag in there, there's five, but three of them are really one
15:45
conglomerate. So there's very, very few.
15:47
I'd love, I'd love to see much more.
15:48
But the problem is right now, if PSAI mean there's so many cards
15:53
being submitted, I don't think these small companies can handle
15:55
it, handle the submissions like they're starting to be overload.
15:58
Didn't tag, shut down tag. Shut down?
16:01
Yeah. There's also degree, yeah.
16:03
Degree What's? What's degree?
16:04
That's a new. Degree card grading.
16:06
There another one that's becoming more and more popular.
16:09
OK. Have they have they raised times
16:12
or shut down? I mean like when, when, when the
16:14
tags shut down and the CGCS are now five months.
16:17
It's like, you know, if, if you're not going to go to PSA
16:21
because they're $30 and eight months, you need a a viable
16:24
alternative for a company that's not going to sell as high.
16:27
But if they're also five months and they're probably going to
16:30
raise turn to turn on times before you even get it back,
16:33
they're not really a viable alternative if they sell so much
16:36
less. So yeah, I would love to see a
16:38
bunch of companies rise up and compete, but I don't think it's
16:40
gonna be in this, like in this environment.
16:43
It needs to be in a more stable environment would be my guess.
16:45
I don't, maybe not. I don't know.
16:48
So let's talk about CGC because I think they have the best slabs
16:52
around. Do you ever do you ever receive
16:54
any CGC slabs in in collections that you're buying?
16:58
Yeah, yeah, quite a bit. They don't sell very well.
17:02
I wish they did. I wish they did.
17:03
I I love the slab. I actually like the PSA slab.
17:06
I don't you. You don't, right?
17:08
I think it's fine. It's.
17:11
The CC plus. It's like a utility player doing
17:16
a pinch. Doing a pinch.
17:19
OK, just just purely aesthetics. Are you CGC one like tag 2
17:24
maybe? No, I actually can't stand the
17:26
tag. Oh really?
17:28
I like label 'cause it only looks good on a black
17:31
background. Oh, you mean like with the back
17:35
with the wall? Like up again, like a black
17:37
wall. Yeah, 'cause it has its see
17:39
through, it's acrylic label with white lettering, and so if you
17:44
put it on a white wall, for instance, you're not gonna be
17:46
able to read it. Yeah, OK.
17:49
I never, never thought of that, but OK.
17:51
So you CGC 1. Yeah, I guess, I guess I would.
17:56
It's hard for me to say because most of my cards are PSA,
17:58
because most cards are PSA. It's if I'm looking for a card,
18:04
I would love to buy it in a CGC slab for CGC prices.
18:10
But and and somebody said, well, if you want it in a CGC slab,
18:13
why don't you just buy it at PSA prices?
18:15
That wouldn't make any sense, no.
18:18
Although, although Neo says, and I agree with him, like that's
18:22
the, that's the way things will actually change is if people
18:24
start paying C, you know, PSA 9 prices for CGC 9 cards, but that
18:29
that's hard to say. Well, gently, Mike, you, you
18:32
lead the charge. Yeah, there needs to be more of
18:37
a demand for CGC. There needs to be more people
18:39
and there are a lot more people submitting to CGC.
18:41
Their numbers are way up. But again, it's mostly TCG
18:45
cards. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:48
So what would you say is the difference between APSA 9 and a
18:54
C GC9 in terms of what they're selling for?
18:58
You get a, you get a, a nice card in that's CGC 9.
19:03
What would you, if you're comping it out to APSA 9, 'cause
19:06
you're probably unlikely to find one in a C GC9 and it's listed
19:10
at, I don't know, $300 or the comps are $300?
19:15
What would you hope to get from that CGC 9?
19:17
Well, so there's, there's actually two factors there.
19:19
There's there's something kind of more important than that.
19:22
I mean, maybe if APSA 9 was going for 300 and on a modern
19:26
card and you know, maybe an SGC 9, I'd hoped to get 200 and a C
19:31
GC9, I don't know, 180, something like that sort of in
19:36
that ballpark. But but it's worse than that
19:38
because the CGC 9's just, you're just gonna have such a hard time
19:42
selling it. It's just gonna sit there like
19:45
nobody's gonna buy it. And, and SGC 9 is the same with
19:48
modern, whereas the PSA 9, if it's priced at market's gonna
19:51
sell. And so you might find a comp on
19:54
the SGC 9 at 200 and say, OK, I'll price it at 200, but it's
19:57
just gonna sit there. Whereas the the PSA 9 comps at
20:00
300 price it at 300 is gonna sell.
20:02
So it's it from, you know, I don't know, I don't know how to
20:05
change that. I I would love that to change
20:08
but I don't know how to change it.
20:10
An interesting thing I've noticed is 'cause I'm looking
20:13
for CGC slabbed autographs that are at on eBay auction because
20:20
if they start at $0.99. You're gonna get them for a
20:23
steal. You think you think so, but
20:25
other people have the same theory.
20:27
And once you've started bidding, you have that ownership
20:30
attachment to it already, right? That's the whole point of the
20:33
$0.99 auction. And what I find is that if
20:36
somebody starts a $0.99 auction for a CGC autograph, especially
20:41
for a semi rare autograph, they're going to go much, much
20:44
closer to PSA prices because people, they, they feel like
20:49
they, they really want it, they're looking for that and
20:51
they have to have it. And they think it's going to go
20:53
low and then they get attached to it.
20:55
But if that same card were to be listed by it now, it's never
20:59
going to sell for the price it sells for an auction.
21:01
Interesting. OK.
21:03
Well you're sort of giving me some some business advice here
21:06
on how to. Move No, no, no.
21:08
Don't. I'll let the boys know to
21:11
auction all CGC cards, Mike says.
21:13
It's gonna work though. It'll go well.
21:16
And I'm not saying they go for the same, but they definitely go
21:18
more than a comp you would expect to go for.
21:22
Yeah. 'Cause I think, you know, I'll
21:24
see like a, a Tony Gwynn 1983 tops autograph and ACGC slab and
21:31
I'll look up the comps and there are none for CGC.
21:32
But PSA is like $800. And I'll think, oh, I, maybe I
21:36
can get this for 5:50 or something.
21:39
And it ends up going for like 675, which feels it's awesome.
21:43
I love seeing that. But then that same card and the
21:48
Tony Gwyn's a bad example 'cause there's none of those, but you
21:52
see the same card listed and it's listed for cheaper than the
21:56
one that just sold and people didn't buy it and haven't bought
22:00
it. Huh.
22:01
OK. No, I haven't, I haven't noticed
22:03
that, but that's interesting. Yeah, Well, I, I hope, I hope
22:07
CGC, I hope CGC is a good company as far as I know.
22:10
I hope they hope they catch up here.
22:12
Maybe maybe that's the way to do it.
22:14
Auction stuff, get these prices up and then the comps look
22:17
better when you price it and buy now.
22:19
Yeah, so what's what? It's new in Sewell sports cards
22:24
world. Sewell.
22:26
Sports card world so I, I got an office for the first time in my
22:30
life. I've always worked out of my
22:32
basement or my garage. My, the biggest I ever got was
22:37
in A2 car garage, but I just, I got to the point where I, I, I
22:41
didn't, I needed more space. So I actually got an office and
22:44
yeah, I'm in my office. We, we started on Monday.
22:47
This is our, this was our first week so.
22:49
When will we get the tour of the office on on your channel?
22:54
Yeah, that's a guy I don't know. That's a good idea.
22:55
I'll probably post one at some point just given the the brief
22:58
tour. But yeah, I got, I got a yeah, I
23:00
got some employees. I got everything.
23:01
I, I'm like, I had a good year. So it's exciting for me.
23:05
It's I didn't I'm, I'm a very like, I want to be at home
23:09
playing with cards by myself. That's what I want.
23:12
I want that to be 80% of my day, every day if possible.
23:18
It's not really possible if you want to grow a company.
23:21
So I, you know, bit the bullet. Is that the term?
23:24
Bit the bullet, bit the bullet and got an office.
23:28
And five days in, I, I'm really enjoying it.
23:30
I basically spend my mornings at home by myself playing with
23:32
cards. And then I come in around noon
23:34
and do office things until like 5:00-ish and then go.
23:37
So, so far it's been great. Five days in, Yeah.
23:42
Congratulations. Yeah, Goodyear is fantastic.
23:45
It's good for, you know, anybody in the hobby pretty much.
23:49
And we're looking to expand. We've made an offer to Mike,
23:52
Junk Wax Hero, to join the team, and he passed.
23:56
He was like, you're gonna have to add a couple zeros to that.
23:58
Well you only offered me $3,000,000 so 3 $1,000,000 Yeah
24:06
I would love to work in the hobby.
24:08
I just don't see me leaving my my real world job anytime soon.
24:13
Yeah, Can I, So can I share something you, I don't think
24:16
this is personal, but you said and so yeah, cut this.
24:20
There's like if there's a gap in the next, like if there's like a
24:22
random cut, it's because what I was about to say I wasn't
24:25
supposed to share, but Mike told me that in 2020 or 2021, wait,
24:30
what would you tell me in 2021 if the opportunity it arose to
24:35
be in the industry as your full time job, you would have taken
24:37
it back then, whereas today, today your current too good to
24:40
do it. Not quite that recent, but
24:42
probably 2018 or 19. Oh, OK.
24:45
Oh, before. Yeah, I wasn't making very much
24:50
money. I was making reasonable money,
24:51
but not like holy man, I I could never leave this job I have
24:56
because I make too much money. That's I'm not like bragging,
25:00
but like the amount of money I make right now is shocking to
25:03
2019 Mike where I could not make this much money.
25:09
Plus health insurance for my family in the Hollapee.
25:13
And at the time in 2018, my wife had health insurance for the
25:17
family and she lost that health insurance.
25:21
And so we had to go into mine and we've been on my health
25:24
insurance ever since. And it's tough to, you know, I,
25:29
I doubt you're giving health insurance to your employees.
25:32
Not yet, but yeah, hopefully will soon.
25:37
Yeah, hopefully. But yeah, not yet.
25:40
So yeah, it would be nearly impossible for me to leave my
25:46
real world job and jump into a hobby job, although I'd love to.
25:50
Yeah. Oh, we could start a grading
25:52
company to compete with the big boys.
25:54
Absolutely. Owning A grading company.
25:56
Doesn't that sound like the most awful?
25:59
I mean, everyone just hates on all the grading companies and
26:02
you can't do anything right? So I don't know why anyone would
26:04
do that. But.
26:06
I could see owning an eye appeal company where you just pick up a
26:10
card, look at it and and assign it an I appeal grade.
26:13
Well, you're so supportive of the I Appeal stickers.
26:17
Oh, I think stickers are ridiculous.
26:19
I think that it's so silly to say this card is within the
26:23
first, the top 5% of cards in this grade.
26:27
It just doesn't make any sense. But if you wanted me to say boop
26:32
A plus, I think there's tons of value in that.
26:35
Oh, OK, so. Oh, interesting.
26:37
So it's the terminology you don't approve of.
26:38
It's not the, not the concept. It's also the stickers.
26:42
The stickers but but if someone was paying you to for your
26:45
opinion, you'd have to provide it somehow.
26:47
What would you do if not a sticker?
26:48
You would just tell them on the spot.
26:50
No, I don't know. I I haven't given it any thought
26:53
really, but. I can I can tell.
27:00
Yeah, I don't really. I don't really know, but but
27:05
another big part of my problem with the NBA stickers is that
27:09
they're almost never centered and they're always a little
27:13
Askew like. You've got the Beckett issue.
27:18
Yeah, yeah, although Beckett fixed their labels.
27:21
Did you see this? Yeah, but did they fix that
27:23
problem? I haven't.
27:23
I haven't seen any of the new labels.
27:25
Yeah, because now they have the card grade and then so it'll
27:29
say, you know, Beckett 7 and then right underneath that it
27:32
says Auto 10. And so there's no separate
27:35
sticker next to the. Label.
27:37
OK, OK, nice. All right.
27:38
Good for that. Good for them for solving an
27:40
obvious issue that they should have solved 25 years ago.
27:44
Has it been that way that long? It's crazy.
27:46
It started in 90, I think 99. And they had that same they
27:50
never. You know what, I'm not sure.
27:53
I, I, I think I actually started noticing it for real when I,
27:55
when you started talking about it, 'cause like, yeah, that is
27:57
so true. That's always a problem.
27:59
Yeah, I've never, I've never been in design or anything like
28:03
that, but I tend to notice those things that I'm a big fan of
28:06
symmetry. And so when something doesn't
28:10
look symmetrical or it doesn't line up correctly, it really,
28:13
really bothers me. I I've worked in data analytics
28:18
for 16 years and I'm not big on over designing a dashboard for
28:27
for people but it should look good.
28:31
Yeah, you should. You shouldn't be bothered by the
28:34
design. No and.
28:37
And when your whole thing is a sticker and it's on, the sticker
28:42
is based on the eye appeal of the card, and you've destroyed
28:45
the eye appeal of the card because you put the sticker on
28:47
slanted, you've failed your job. It's a little ironic, I think.
28:52
Ironic, yeah. It's ironic.
28:55
I mean, OK, but so I agreed, agreed with all that.
28:58
But as someone who believes heavily in the eye appeal
29:01
movement, that you what you do right.
29:03
Absolutely. I appeal.
29:05
Do you not see an, I'm not a big fan of the stickers either, just
29:09
to be clear, but do you not see potential value in given that
29:12
the grading companies have kind of become inconsistent?
29:15
And the whole point of the grading company is, is the third
29:17
party, You know, hey, so a buyer and a seller don't have to argue
29:20
with the greatest. No, it's a four.
29:22
The third party company who doesn't have any interest in
29:25
this sale is saying it's a four. And now that that's becoming
29:28
consistent, you don't see a value in another person coming
29:32
and saying no, no, it's yeah, it's a it's a four, but it's
29:34
actually a little better, you know, 'cause they're cause fours
29:38
aren't all worth the made the made to look the same, right.
29:41
So, so there can be someone saying, yeah, most people would
29:46
say this 4 is on the high end of the four scale, whereas this 4
29:49
is on the low end of the four scale.
29:51
You don't see value in that. Well, let's let's separate this
29:54
a little bit because first of all, I know that those are
29:58
selling for more and I understand why the the MBA
30:02
stickers are selling, causing those cards to sell for more and
30:06
that's fine, that's fine. But is there value in it?
30:13
Can you look at A at APSA one and tell that it has better eye
30:17
appeal than another PSA one? No, it's impossible.
30:22
So you need Mike Baker to tell you this.
30:25
Baker, This has better eye appeal.
30:27
Yes, if I, if I, if I, if Mike Baker doesn't tell me, I can't
30:30
tell. And that's, that's The thing is
30:34
I can see if it's already been graded, maybe maybe the PSA and
30:42
I think you guys were talking about this, was it you and
30:45
Jeremy that we're talking about this week?
30:47
Maybe the PSA and SGC and Beckett and CGC method of
30:52
technical grading is just outdated.
30:55
Oh, that was not us, but that's an interesting topic and I
30:58
would. Oh, is Jeremy, Jeremy Lee and
31:00
David Chase talking about that? OK.
31:02
That's an interesting topic and I bet that it is.
31:05
Yeah, I don't know, but I bet that it is.
31:08
I assume they concluded that it is.
31:10
Yeah, yeah. And you know, I think do we
31:13
really care if there's microscopic little problems with
31:18
the card? Are those going to become bigger
31:21
over the next 30 years in the card?
31:24
Or are they just something that you can see with a microscope
31:26
that really don't matter? Totally agree.
31:29
I I I I totally I well, I don't know what the their their
31:32
conclusion was, but I totally agree.
31:34
A microscopic issue should not bring a card down from A10 to A9
31:37
or A10 to a 9.5 or whatever in my opinion.
31:40
I just. Don't I?
31:41
Don't care about Yeah. I bought a 1926 Bobby Jones.
31:47
I think it's 26, Bobby Jones rookie card.
31:51
You look at it and it is absolutely stunning.
31:54
It's perfect. 26 Bobby Jones Love it.
31:57
OK. Yeah, this was at the National
31:58
last year and it's. Is this a top 100 cards of all
32:02
time or whatever? Portable, yeah.
32:04
It's APSA one, which is why I was able to afford it.
32:07
It was very inexpensive because it's PSA one.
32:10
But I, I remember showing Greg and I said, actually, I don't
32:13
remember this, but he, he reminded me and I said, hey,
32:17
check this out and he looked at it.
32:18
I said don't flip it over. He looked at it and he said this
32:21
is like a 10. This is the most perfect, most
32:24
beautiful Bobby Jones rookie card I've ever seen.
32:27
Why did it get a 1? And I said, I'm not gonna tell
32:29
you don't flip it over. But if you do flip it over, you
32:33
will see the most microscopic paper loss.
32:36
Oh. Wow, OK.
32:37
Tiny little paper loss and that maybe it's a 1.5.
32:43
I have it right here. It's a two.
32:45
It is a 2. And a PSA 2 or an SGC.
32:49
Sorry PSA 2 because it has this most microscopic paper loss
32:54
you've ever seen on the back and it it makes no sense why?
32:59
Why would we care? Why wouldn't we just give that
33:02
like an A minus? That's a great point.
33:05
That's a great thought. Great thought.
33:08
Yeah. I mean, I agree.
33:09
I mean, 'cause you can you find twos that are all like ripped up
33:13
and look disgusting. But so maybe the maybe the,
33:17
yeah, maybe the scale needs an update in terms of how we think
33:20
about it. Yeah.
33:22
I like that. All right, we've solved the
33:24
grading world. We did it.
33:26
We did it all right. We can.
33:28
We can retire now. That's it for today, Chris.
33:33
I appreciate you coming on and you'll be back on in four weeks.
33:37
I'll have Teapot back on with me in 2 weeks.
33:41
OK, nice. Yeah, yeah, if you ever get, if
33:44
you ever, I've never been on screen with teapot before.
33:47
So if you ever feel have the feel to feeling to make that
33:50
happen, I'm cool with that. OK, well that's good to know.
33:54
He's great. I'm a big teapot fan.
33:56
Yeah, same, same. All right, Chris, thanks for
33:59
joining me. I hope everybody enjoys the lack
34:02
of an outro for now. I I promise to put one together
34:05
at some point. Awesome, awesome.
34:07
Thanks as always man.