Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Is Geoff Wilson Right About CGC?

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Is Geoff Wilson Right About CGC? · Sports Card Clubhouse

• 0:00
  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 buddy, Happy New Year it is
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  as we record this January 2nd. Does it feel different?
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  It doesn't, it never really does though, does it?
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  Until it used to be that once you've had to write the date on
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  a check, but I'll, I'll write like two or three checks a year
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  now. So it's pretty.
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  But I will say I'm, I've been on vacation all week long and I
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  haven't shaved. I usually trim my beard, you
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  know, I haven't shaved my neck and it's, it's gotten to the
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  point where it's really starting to drive me crazy, a little
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  itchy. I'm not going to shave, though.
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  Not until Sunday night. Well, have you had to rake the
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  roof recently? Last time we talked you told me
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  about raking the roof, not raising the roof.
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  Raking the roof. Right.
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  I I haven't since we talked last.
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  I'm pretty sure I haven't. OK, we.
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  Haven't really gotten any snow. We did get AI don't know 1/2 of
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  an inch yesterday. We've had rain and overcast
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  skies for like 3 straight weeks which is feels like Oregon.
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  Here in Sacramento it is very weird but it's fine.
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  I was in bed and asleep by 9:15 on New Year's Eve so I was just
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  a hoot of fun. Did you go anywhere?
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  I know you're an early to bed guy as well.
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  No, we decided probably 5 or 6 years ago to stay up late on New
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  Year's Eve. And then we were like, why did
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  we do that? And we haven't yet again since
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  then. Yeah, it's insane.
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  My, my stepdad's birthday is New Year's Eve.
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  And so we usually have them, him and my wife, him and my mom over
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  with my wife and my kids. And we play games.
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  And then at 9:00 we say, OK, guys, you're out because we just
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  do the East Coast New Year's out here.
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  But he had a birthday party with family from out of town earlier
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  in the day. So yeah, I was out.
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  I mean, I didn't wake up when all the banging and and
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  explosions happened at midnight. So all right, well, enough of
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  the recap of our exciting New Year's Eve celebrations.
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  Another week or two and another kick in the nuts for card
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  collectors and hobbyists. Strongsville News came out.
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  We've got a couple of topics today.
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  Let's start with the Strongsville News.
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  Let's do it. Why don't you tell anybody
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  listening who hasn't heard yet your understanding of the new
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  Strongsville situation? Well, I don't know a ton.
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  So this is perfect because I'm actually going planning on going
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  to Strongsville and I'm putting up air quotes here.
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  Strongsville, the Strongsville show in April for the first
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  time. I've, I've never been before and
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  I'm excited to actually have the opportunity to go.
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  And then I found out early this week that they were moving it to
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  Independence, OH, which is I think a 30 minute drive from
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  Strongsville. It's no longer in the ice arena,
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  hockey arena, hockey rink, and which is kind of like the draw I
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  think. I thought it was pretty cool
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  that it was in a hockey arena and it's now going to be
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  combined with a large TCG show. So the originality of the show
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  is completely gone. It was in a hockey rink, it was
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  all vintage, and now it is kind of a bland non all vintage, non
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  hockey rink, vintage plus TCG. And you've got to think that if
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  they do that then what's next? They're going to add in modern
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  cards too, because why not? Yeah.
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  So I've been to Strongsville twice.
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  And to me, Strongsville is superior to the National because
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  of the amount of quality time that you get with your buddies.
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  When you're at the National, it's more spread out.
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  There's multiple hotels. There's some people staying 10
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  miles away and some some people staying, you know, at the same
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  hotel. You might see some people in the
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  lobby. You might see some people in the
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  walk over. The show's really big.
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  You can kind of get lost. It's hard to find each other.
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  The cell service sucks. But not in Strongsville.
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  Strongsville literally is a very, very it.
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  Well, it was a very cozy hotel and literally on the other side
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  of the parking lot was the ice rink.
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  So it was a 92nd walk from the lobby to the ice rink.
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  And now that's not what's happening.
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  Now the closest hotel is 2 1/2 miles away.
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  There's about 5 hotels in that location.
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  So now I'm sure people will be in all sorts of different
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  hotels. You can't walk back and forth to
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  the bathroom or for a nap or for I forgot something in my room.
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  Now you've got to drive back to your room.
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  So here's the way I always thinking about this.
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  And have you ever heard of Sturgis Mike Sturgis.
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  Sturgis. No.
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  Sturgis is this huge motorcycle rally in one of the Dakotas.
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  Is it? I I wrote it down.
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  It's in South Dakota. And what happens is every year
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  all these motorcycle enthusiasts go to Sturgis S South Dakota and
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  and about 500,000 people ride their motorcycles to Sturgis
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  every year. Now Sturgis is a town of 7000
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  people. It's a tiny little town, but
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  they all convene on this one location.
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  They all rode, ride their motorcycles, there's concerts,
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  there's Hangouts, people are drinking and having a good time
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  and it's sort of their pilgrimage.
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  It's where they go to meet up in this little place and it's been
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  going on for like 85 years. It started before World War 2
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  and they do it every year. They haven't changed it to
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  Dallas. I haven't changed it to Denver
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  or you know, Scottsdale because it would be better conducive of
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  500,000 people. The charm is that it's the same
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  place every year and it's the tradition.
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  And that's the part that feels like a kick in the nuts is this
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  was like our little thing now. I don't know why it got changed.
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  And they're not they, I haven't heard why it got changed.
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  Maybe they don't want it to be changed.
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  Maybe there was a contract issue.
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  Maybe the ice rink got double booked and next year it'll be
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  back. I don't know if it'll be better
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  or worse, but the charm is different.
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  It's no longer it. It just feels like another
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  corporate move, and that's the bummer.
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  Now it might be great. I'm still going.
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  I'm staying. By the way, if you're listening
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  to this and you want to stay in the same hotel as myself, at
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  least I will be at the Embassy Suites.
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  Me too. Look, for me, the reason I'm
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  going is so I can meet everybody and hang out with everybody and
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  see everyone in the lobby. That's the whole point.
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  So please go to the Embassy Suites because I know that's
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  where a lot of us are going to go.
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  But it feels like the charm has been removed.
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  And it's not just this one thing.
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  It's like, you know, Collectors takes over our little Charm
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  Boutique, Greater SGC and Fanatics gobbles up all of the
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  licenses and it just feels like it's another thing that went
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  corporate. Now, it doesn't mean it's going
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  to stay that way, doesn't mean it's not going to be fun,
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  doesn't mean I'm not going. It just feels like everything's
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  going corporate. Like how I can't book a hotel
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  right now within a mile of the National because the National
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  bought out all the rooms. Like why is everything
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  corporate? Just let free enterprise be free
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  enterprise. Yeah, you mentioned it's a kick
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  in the nuts. And if people want to sell their
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  collections and they don't want to get a kick in the nuts,
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  that's the best segue I had for today.
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  I love it. They should go to Chris Sewell
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  cause Chris will not kick you in the nuts with his deals.
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  He offers very strong. If you're looking to sell your
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  collection reach out to Chris. You can go to our website
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  sportscardclubhouse.com or you can just e-mail him Sewell
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  sportscards@gmail.com. Chris offers the best, very,
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  very fair. He gives amazing deals and he's
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  very transparent about how he does it.
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  They again sports card clubhouse.com or just e-mail him
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  at sewellsportscards@gmail.com. He is the sponsor of this show
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  and we are huge fans of Chris. Let me just say I got to throw
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  this out there. You know, I really appreciate
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  Chris taking a risk on us. We were just a start up little
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  podcast. Nobody even knew we were doing
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  this at the time. We had like 200 subscribers on
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  YouTube and Chris was like, yeah man, I want to, I want to
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  sponsor you guys like that. That shows a lot of his faith in
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  US and I want to reciprocate that 'cause he is a really good
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  guy. So thank you, Chris.
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  So you also, you talked about the charm and there is far less
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  charm every year. It feels like because of that
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  corporatization of everything, everything's going very
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  corporate and it feels like they they said, well, we've got the
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  Strongville show. We also have this TCG show.
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  We could make 20% more money if we combine them and wouldn't 20%
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  more money be amazing? And maybe for the people who run
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  the show, that's shoes. I'm, I'm making up 20%.
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  It could be 100% more money. I, it doesn't matter to me, But
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  they, they lose the charm of it and maybe they don't care.
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  Maybe that doesn't matter to them because they're going to
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  make more money. But at some point, you're going
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  to see fewer of the passionate vintage collectors, the
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  Youtubers who promote this show for free, going to the show,
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  going instead to Philly, to Nashville, to the Dallas Card
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  Show. Because we will find a place to
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  meet up once a year outside of the National and it may not be
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  the Strongsville slash Independence show anymore.
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  Yeah, yeah. And, and this show so, so if we
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  go back three years, this show was in the ballroom of the the
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  hotel itself, but because of the promotion, it outgrew that to
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  the ice rink. It was only it was only in the
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  ice rink for two years before that.
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  It was in this tiny little room. I mean, you can go back and
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  watch a Ryan Nolan video of breakout cards doing a going to
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  the show. And it's I mean, it was a a
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  little room and it grew and now it's growing again.
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  And I'm not saying they should have like consulted us, but we
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  should have probably found out about this from the actual, you
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  know, show people instead of from like third party.
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  Wait, what's happening? Like they didn't even like throw
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  it out to us. They didn't even.
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  Again, in fact. Whatever they want.
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  In fact, they emailed dealers and said please do not release
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  this information. Yeah.
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  So the dealers who I know are paying them money, they were
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  notifying before we at least should have been notified maybe
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  on the same e-mail, right? I, I don't, again, I'm not here
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  to bash them. I mean, they've been nothing but
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  good to me. I've thoroughly enjoyed the
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  experience the first two years. My concern is it just feels like
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  more corporate takeover. And again, I, I don't want to
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  speculate too much. I, I try really hard not to
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  speculate. Why is something happening?
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  Why did it happen that there is a very good chance that there
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  that the ice rink was double booked and they had to find
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  another place and they asked this other show to come by like,
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  I don't know. And it might be going back next
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  year. I don't know.
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  But after the year that we had of 2025 of every time you turn
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  around, Peter's leaving, Beckett's being consumed, eBay
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  has this new partnership with PSA.
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  It's like every time you turned around, it was like it was the
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  little guy continues to get smushed.
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  It's sort of like when you know, Lowe's or Home Depot move into a
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  little town, that little that little hardware store that
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  everybody went to for years and you'd walk in and you'd have an
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  account and they just put it on your account and they know them
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  and they know you. What about them?
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  You remember the show Full House, right?
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  TGIF of of. Course.
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  I'm I'm not gonna break up. Stephanie.
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  Stephanie was my girl. Stephanie on Full House.
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  I don't remember Stephanie. Oh, she's the middle child.
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  Yeah, DJ's little sister. Yeah, yeah.
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  So I, I'm not gonna break out in song here, but I still remember
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  all the lyrics to the theme song and that it's, it's pretty
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  accurate for how we're feeling now about nostalgia and the
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  olden days. Olden days, yeah.
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  The olden days being 2020. 4 right, right, exactly.
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  OK, well, we've talked a little bit about Beckett and, and how
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  they've been consumed. But on this show and on this
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  channel, we've not really discussed what are our, what do
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  we think is going to happen with Beckett?
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  Like, do you think Beckett is going to have the same fate of
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  SGC? Like, I genuinely don't know
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  your take on this. Do you think?
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  And, and, and let me also preface it with, I feel like my
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  take is changing as I hear more and as as more unfolds.
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  You know when you hear Doctor Beckett repeatedly say as long
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  as Nat does what he's told me and promised me he was going to
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  do, I'm very excited for this. This is a good thing with with
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  all of that, what is as we stand right now on January 2nd, what
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  are your expectations for Beckett and the pieces of
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  Beckett moving forward? I think we have one other
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  signal, one of we have Doctor Beckett and what he's been
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  saying, but we also have Jeff Wilson.
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  And I think that Jeff, I'm actually, I'm very serious about
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  this for once. Oh.
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  Boy. Jeff is, he's an insider and he
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  speaks often with Nat Turner and Ryan Hogue, the heads of
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  collectors who own PSA, Beckett and SGC.
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  And he is coming out and predicting that Beckett is going
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  to be revitalized, brought back to life, made whole again.
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  And I suspect that he wouldn't be predicting this without some
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  sort of inside knowledge. And he's been talking about it a
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  lot. And I, I'm, I'm anticipating
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  that he's saying this because he knows he's going to be able to
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  take a victory lap a year from now, two years from now, and
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  say, look at all these times that I predicted this.
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  And he's only predicting it because he has been told by Nat
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  and Ryan that this is what's going to happen.
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  But don't say it came from us or whatever.
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  And I think that there's value there in what Jeff's saying and
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  what Doctor Beckett is saying. It still would surprise me
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  though if they did something that was positive for
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  collectors. Lowercase C us collectors as it
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  pertains to a grading company that they own.
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  I think that anything they're going to do is only going to be
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  to benefit uppercase C Collectors universe.
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  Are they still called Collectors universe?
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  Is it just collectors now? I think it's just Collectors
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  holdings or something. Yeah, 'cause when they were,
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  they were like on the NASDAQ or something for a while and it was
• 17:39
  collector's universe then. OK.
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  So I'm waiting on his Will Grier victory lap.
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  And in the meantime, though, that's an outstanding point.
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  I think it's a really, really good point.
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  I had not really considered that point that that the lighthouse
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  of of where to follow and the guiding light could be Jeff on
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  this one. But you're right.
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  That makes sense for him to go as hard as he has on this that
• 18:12
  Beckett is going to survive. The amount of egg on his face
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  would just be insane if it wasn't true.
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  So let's just go with that for a second, OK?
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  Beckett is going to survive. They're going to resurrect the
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  brand. How?
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  How do PSA and Beckett coexist? How do that?
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  How does that work? Because anytime any company has
• 18:46
  multiple brands, you have to find sort of the niche for each
• 18:51
  of the brands, you know, and, and with the car thing, you've
• 18:55
  got Acura and you've got Honda. Acura is the Acura is the
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  premier brand. Honda is the the base regular
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  kind of guy brand. How do, how do they brand it?
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  What what is the reason that what is the differentiator that
• 19:14
  Beckett has for some that PSA has for and then what is the
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  differentiator for PSA like how do you see that plain out?
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  Before I answer that, should we name this episode?
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  Jeff Wilson is the guiding light of the hobby and just watch the
• 19:28
  hate views come in. Maybe, maybe we again, I let me
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  just throw this out there. I would love for Jeff to come on
• 19:38
  the channel. I would love for you to
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  interview Jeff. I think Jeff, I know Jeff gets
• 19:44
  hate. I know I'll get hate for saying
• 19:46
  this, but he has done some good stuff.
• 19:50
  He has attracted some people to the hobby.
• 19:53
  He's done some stuff I'm not thrilled about too, for sure.
• 19:58
  But he's an interesting guy and I would love to hear you pick
• 20:02
  his brain and he is, like you said, an insider.
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  He has connections. He has.
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  The ability to know some things before some of us just because
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  of his place in the hobby. OK.
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  I don't know if we should call it that.
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  See, I'm getting choked up just talking about it.
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  Back to the question though, where, what is the what it how
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  do they market PSA and Beckett then to coexist?
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  So if. P if Beckett, sorry if SGC is
• 20:38
  your vintage boutique grader, Beckett could be your mid era
• 20:45
  80s, nineties, 2000s basketball. In particular I think there's a
• 20:50
  they have a bit of a foothold in like 90s basketball stuff and
• 20:55
  PSA could be the more modern ultra modern grader.
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  They Beckett has a strong pop popularity with sub grades and
• 21:07
  so it'd be interesting to see what they do with subgrades.
• 21:09
  Are they going to eliminate those because it's kind of
• 21:12
  expensive, it takes longer to provide subgrades or will they
• 21:17
  add subgrades? Will they find a way to move
• 21:20
  subgrades to SGC and to PSA as well?
• 21:23
  Which I, I don't think so. By the way, I'm, I'm going to
• 21:25
  say right now that will not happen, but that is something
• 21:28
  that people are speculating. But I, I can definitely see it
• 21:32
  just being a another. I think that they'll eliminate
• 21:36
  the BCCG brand. I think they'll eliminate the
• 21:39
  BVG brand. Both of those are not great
• 21:45
  brands that I think that. The collectors Stegosaurus is
• 21:48
  more relevant, yeah. And I think that they'll just
• 21:53
  have BGS and it, it'll be interesting to see what they do.
• 21:59
  I I think also the Beckett card monthly, I think we talked about
• 22:06
  this a week or so ago, Card ladder powered by Beckett.
• 22:09
  Something like that would be really interesting to see.
• 22:13
  I think every time somebody says PSA is a monopoly and we can't
• 22:19
  allow a monopoly, I think every time that is said, it UPS the
• 22:24
  percentage likelihood that the Beckett brand continues to exist
• 22:29
  so that they can claim that there are other options.
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  I understand it's under the same holding company.
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  I understand it's under the same umbrella.
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  But I, I think that if people keep beating the drum that PSA
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  is creating APSA monopoly or collectors is creating APSA
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  monopoly, it's more likely that they don't completely kill SGC
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  and Beckett, even if they have, you know, disarmed them.
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  But the, the problem, I, I, I like what you, you're saying.
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  I, I again, I agree with a lot, but let me push back on one
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  thing. How does Beckett become the
• 23:09
  basketball brand if people are taking right now BGS 8 star
• 23:20
  Jordans and cracking them and getting them into 7 PS as or six
• 23:26
  PS as and it's worth more than the the Beckett eights.
• 23:31
  I mean, every time that somebody crosses a star Jordan from a
• 23:37
  Beckett holder to APSA holder, the grade goes down, but the
• 23:40
  value goes up. That to me is like shows the
• 23:45
  dominance of PSA. What if there's a subset of
• 23:48
  cards that is much, much easier to grade?
• 23:52
  So let's say 1981 through 2010. There's not a whole lot of
• 23:57
  complexity. There aren't a lot of parallels.
• 23:59
  There aren't a lot of rare sets. And they say SGC is for vintage.
• 24:06
  We're going to and you don't, You don't necessarily need to
• 24:08
  use them for vintage. Of course, you could still use
• 24:10
  PSA, but then PSA is your premium brand.
• 24:14
  And again, I'm throwing up air quotes here, but then they say
• 24:17
  Beckett, we're going to let people use Beckett for $12.00 a
• 24:22
  card for 1980 through 2010. Something to that effect that we
• 24:27
  know that they're not going to sell for as much and they can.
• 24:33
  Beckett graders can do the much, much quicker.
• 24:36
  It could be that SGC is your vintage brand, PS as premium and
• 24:40
  Beckett is your value brand. Yeah, I could that.
• 24:45
  That makes sense I think. I think they need to come out in
• 24:52
  the not too distant future and set some parameters on what SGC
• 24:58
  is still going to grade I. I don't think there's any reason
• 25:03
  to get a 2024 Mike Trout card in an SGC holder.
• 25:08
  People are still doing it. I, I, I think they need to draw
• 25:13
  a line in the sand with what SGC is going to grade.
• 25:16
  It will really create some economies of scale if they could
• 25:21
  start to, you know, just grade certain things like, you know,
• 25:28
  1880 to 1980 is all SGC is now doing.
• 25:33
  Now people will go, Oh my gosh, see, they're cutting them back.
• 25:36
  But that's really all they should be grading at this point.
• 25:39
  And it would reduce a lot of the, you know, every time you
• 25:43
  get some TCG and some modern and some ultra modern and some of,
• 25:48
  you know, patch card or something, it just waters down
• 25:52
  what they can do. I sent in an SGC order a week
• 25:55
  ago. It it was received on Monday.
• 26:01
  It doesn't say received in the STC app yet.
• 26:05
  I know it was received because I had a tracking number and so I
• 26:10
  know they have my package. It says it was picked up at the
• 26:13
  post office by my tracking number, but the system doesn't
• 26:18
  even say a week after sending it that it was received.
• 26:23
  And and they used to be a 5 to 10 day turn around.
• 26:27
  There was a time where by now the grades would have posted.
• 26:32
  Now it doesn't even say received.
• 26:34
  And part of that is I think because they're mucked down by
• 26:38
  grading everything. Take your focus from this wide
• 26:42
  focus and narrow it from about 175° to like, I don't know, 30°.
• 26:51
  Yeah, I agree. And we should probably also note
• 26:54
  over on sportscardclubhouse.com, we have a new poll up.
• 26:57
  It's relatively new. I think what is the best slab
• 27:00
  out there and it has the BIG4PSA, SGC, Beckett and CGC
• 27:04
  and then it also has tag for best slab.
• 27:07
  There are five options. Go vote on, just go to
• 27:10
  sportscardclubhouse.com, click on vote.
• 27:13
  And currently SGC is in the lead with 42%, CGC is in second with
• 27:20
  25%, TAG is in 3rd with. 21 pounds.
• 27:25
  PSA is in fourth at 13% and Beckett probably right where
• 27:29
  they belong, 0%. Wow.
• 27:33
  Yeah, Beck Beckett is at 0% and and PSA is in fourth.
• 27:43
  Now, if you're talking just tagging, I don't want to, I
• 27:46
  don't want to give too much of my opinion.
• 27:48
  We'll we'll follow back up on this next week.
• 27:51
  But if you're talking about just the slab, I I mean, because
• 27:57
  sometimes people will get a card graded by a certain company
• 28:00
  because of the potential liquidity or the resale value or
• 28:06
  the strength of the brand. But if you're talking just the
• 28:10
  slab, I don't know. I mean, that does change things.
• 28:17
  Very interesting. Very interesting.
• 28:20
  Just the slab. Yeah, we'll talk more about
• 28:24
  this. We'll talk more about the
• 28:25
  results next week. Last topic here, we're 3028
• 28:28
  minutes in, but you just put this to me on a silver platter
• 28:33
  and your buddy Jeff did a video the other day.
• 28:37
  I haven't watched it. I'm not going to lie, I haven't
• 28:40
  watched it, but I've had multiple people contact me about
• 28:43
  it. But Jeff predicted and you tell
• 28:47
  me if you've seen the video yet, he he's predicting his bold
• 28:50
  prediction for 2026. Is that fanatics by CGC?
• 28:56
  So I seen. That video and what do you think
• 28:58
  about it? I I have not, I've seen the
• 29:01
  thumbnail for it and the title says fanatics by CGC question
• 29:06
  mark. So I wondered if he would
• 29:08
  actually make that guess or that prediction but I have not had a
• 29:13
  chance to watch it yet. I don't think Jeff as a hobby
• 29:17
  insider would know anything about that because it would
• 29:21
  impact fanatics valuation. It would impact their Wall
• 29:25
  Street like the Michael Rubin is not saying to Jeff Wilson, hey,
• 29:29
  we're going to try to buy CGC this year.
• 29:31
  That's just not going to happen. That's insider information.
• 29:36
  I, I think we've talked about this.
• 29:39
  I think we've speculated that it could happen.
• 29:42
  I just don't think it's going to happen because CGC is owned by a
• 29:45
  parent company, which is actually I think BlackRock
• 29:49
  Investments, right? And they own the entire CGC
• 29:53
  brand. So is Fanatics going to buy all
• 29:55
  of the CGCS, not just sports cards one, but also coin
• 30:00
  collecting magazines, comic books, things like that.
• 30:04
  I just, I have a hard time seeing that unless they spin off
• 30:08
  CGC sports card grader as their own, like Fanatics card grader
• 30:12
  and it's their own business and then the rest of them stay under
• 30:15
  BlackRock. Possible.
• 30:17
  I just have a hard time seeing that.
• 30:19
  Yeah, I could see it being magazines, video games, and
• 30:24
  'cause they're like the dominate, the dominating grader
• 30:28
  in video games like. Log Magazines.
• 30:31
  Yeah. And magazines now, Beckett or
• 30:34
  no, I'm sorry, PSA just kind of is rebranding some things and
• 30:39
  starting some things. So we'll see how that plays out.
• 30:42
  I don't think they're going to take over the coin division and
• 30:44
  the coin division for CGC is huge, like huge.
• 30:49
  So I would see maybe cards, video games, magazines, and then
• 30:56
  they rebranded as Fanatics Grading.
• 30:58
  But they acquire the, you know, expertise and all of the, you
• 31:04
  know, the employees, all that kind of thing.
• 31:08
  Would you want that? Would you want Fanatics to do
• 31:12
  that, or would you want CGC to stay where they are?
• 31:15
  I would absolutely want CGC to stay where they are.
• 31:19
  Just ignore all the potential conflicts of interest of a card
• 31:22
  manufacturer grading cards and all the potential problems that
• 31:31
  that could bring. I I would not want a company
• 31:35
  like CGC, which I am starting to use more.
• 31:38
  Going to a $10 billion plus company and having them buy it
• 31:43
  and and the things that they would do to it, just like
• 31:46
  collectors has done to SGC inevitably would be bad for
• 31:50
  collectors like us and good for only fanatics.
• 31:55
  Well, OK, for the sake of conversation, I kind of like it.
• 32:00
  I kind of like Fanatics buying CGC because I feel like if you
• 32:07
  took Fanatics money and Fanatics, you know, footprint
• 32:14
  and and their influence, it could actually genuinely compete
• 32:20
  with PSA. Like right now I think a lot of
• 32:22
  people go, you know, CGC. It's the brand name in card in
• 32:28
  sports card grading is like 4th at best like that.
• 32:33
  What they should have done is they should have bought Beckett
• 32:35
  but they didn't and they should have bought SGC but they didn't.
• 32:40
  But if they bought CGCI mean look at what they did to PWCC
• 32:46
  which was like on the brink of if not on the brink of it was
• 32:51
  like bankruptcy court like purchase.
• 32:54
  They took PWCC and now fanatics like marketplace is huge like it
• 33:02
  is one of the biggest and most respected just by slapping their
• 33:08
  name on the masthead and here we are with grading they could do
• 33:13
  the same and then PSAI think would legit have competition no?
• 33:20
  Well, it's a fairpoint that Fanatics and Michael Rubin would
• 33:24
  love to compete with PSA in that space.
• 33:27
  But why doesn't the the current owner BlackRock, which makes in
• 33:32
  terms of annual revenue 150% more than Fanatics?
• 33:36
  Fanatics makes 8 billion, BlackRock makes $20 billion a
• 33:40
  year. Why haven't they tried this?
• 33:44
  Or are they, are they trying to compete and that's why you're
• 33:47
  seeing an uptick in their grading numbers and presumably
• 33:51
  their revenue along with it? I would have said they're not
• 33:55
  even trying to compete, but when they combined with JSA for
• 34:02
  authentication, that was the smartest move I've seen a
• 34:06
  company make in a long time because all of a sudden they
• 34:09
  could be, they could really help Barry Beckett and they could go
• 34:14
  head up with PSA. When they did that, that was
• 34:17
  such a good move that made me say, oh, they're they're they're
• 34:22
  ready to play. But I just don't think that's
• 34:25
  the focus of the company. Like it's such a small piece of
• 34:30
  the company. You know, when when you look at
• 34:32
  a huge company like Disney and they own so many different
• 34:36
  brands, some of those brands are major money makers.
• 34:41
  Like, you know, ABC and ESPN are like big parts that the Marvel
• 34:47
  brand and the Star Wars brand are like major income.
• 34:50
  But then there's other parts that are kind of small that I
• 34:54
  think that they don't care as much about.
• 34:57
  I kind of feel like that's the sports card grading for CGC is
• 35:00
  it's just a tiny little piece. It's like a rounding error.
• 35:04
  That's why I say peel it off, you know, to fanatics and let
• 35:09
  them go freaking nuts on it. But why would you peel off just
• 35:13
  the sports card grading? Why not?
• 35:16
  Why wouldn't fanatics just start their own?
• 35:20
  Because if, if there's, I mean, if you wanted to open a coffee
• 35:28
  shop in your town and there's a fledgling coffee shop that's
• 35:32
  already got somewhat of a following, it's got the
• 35:34
  equipment, it's got the location.
• 35:37
  Wouldn't it be easier to just buy them for pennies on the
• 35:39
  dollar and then infuse some money and energy into them?
• 35:43
  Like I, I think it's like that. I, I don't, I think it would be
• 35:48
  it. It's the same reason they didn't
• 35:50
  start their own marketplace they bought PWCC is because there's
• 35:53
  already sort of like a a skeleton in place.
• 35:58
  Well, yeah, but PWCC was a distressed brand and I don't
• 36:02
  think CGC is. It's not a distressed brand, but
• 36:07
  it's not a thriving brand at the moment.
• 36:11
  I think that it's not a universally accepted brand by a
• 36:18
  lot of collectors and that's why the resale isn't the same.
• 36:22
  If you took the same card and you put it in a Beckett holder
• 36:27
  versus APSA holder versus an SGC versus ASCGC, it's selling for
• 36:33
  way less in the CGC than the PSAI mean clearly.
• 36:38
  So what does that mean? What does that means to me that
• 36:42
  they're not universally accepted yet?
• 36:44
  I think if you slap fanatics on it, I think it's immediately
• 36:47
  universally accepted and you can take this little piece, you
• 36:50
  could probably sell it for about 3 times what it's actually worth
• 36:53
  and actually bringing in. You don't, You don't like this
• 36:57
  experience anymore. This, you don't.
• 36:59
  You're not having fun with this, are you?
• 37:04
  Did I lose? What are you talking about?
• 37:05
  I love it. OK.
• 37:08
  Your thoughts on SO? You don't think that's going to
• 37:13
  happen though? I don't.
• 37:16
  You've kind of moved me 20 to 30% in the direction of thinking
• 37:21
  that that would be not such a bad thing.
• 37:24
  I don't know. I just have a hard time seeing
• 37:27
  Fanatics doing anything good with them.
• 37:29
  Have they done anything good? Have they made significant
• 37:33
  improvements in baseball cards, basketball cards, anything like
• 37:37
  that? They've certainly revitalized
• 37:39
  them. Last part of my sales pitch, if,
• 37:46
  if fanatics bought the CGC grading sports card, the the
• 37:54
  hobby grading not coin immediately wouldn't don't you
• 38:00
  think PSA would have to convene the, the big, the big rich guys
• 38:05
  from the corner offices into the boardroom and say, how are we
• 38:10
  going to deal with this? And don't you think they would
• 38:13
  say, you know, we we better be a little bit less sloppy with our
• 38:19
  turn around times and a little bit less sloppy with this?
• 38:22
  It would, it would put a little bit of heat on their heels and
• 38:27
  that just that would be good for us, the lowercase collectors,
• 38:32
  wouldn't it all? Right.
• 38:33
  All right, I'm in. Let's do it.
• 38:36
  Who do we need to contact? All right.
• 38:40
  Well, Needless to say, Jeff, with some bold predictions about
• 38:46
  the grading thing, I'll, I'll now I should watch the video.
• 38:50
  Now that I've commented on it, I should at least watch it.
• 38:57
  You know, we're 39 minutes in. I've had a blast.
• 39:01
  Again. Are there any final things you
• 39:05
  want to talk about? The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally,
• 39:10
  Jeff anything? No, I would just want to
• 39:14
  encourage people to go to sportscardclubhouse.com, go and
• 39:17
  vote. Those are the things that we
• 39:21
  we'd love to talk about it every week.
• 39:23
  What? What are the results of last
• 39:24
  week's poll? Yeah, and it is going to be the
• 39:28
  new submission place for the Midlife Community Show and Tell.
• 39:33
  So if you haven't been there yet, but you like putting cards
• 39:37
  in the show and tell episodes, that is going to be the location
• 39:40
  for that. We're trying to centralized a
• 39:42
  lot of the stuff into the website so you can do all in one
• 39:49
  there. There's a great news feed
• 39:52
  section there, video feed section there, access contacting
• 39:57
  anybody there. There's a lot of stuff.
• 39:59
  So again, we're going to complete continue to slowly
• 40:02
  build that out and add more and more each and every month.
• 40:08
  Mike, happy New Year until we meet again in a week.
• 40:13
  I look forward to your videos in the meantime and maybe next time
• 40:17
  we could talk a little bit about goals or changes or expectations
• 40:23
  for our own personal channels and and maybe the Clubhouse
• 40:27
  channel. Because since we last talked, we
• 40:32
  hit 1000 YouTube subscribers, subscribers on the sports car
• 40:36
  clubhouse. So thank you to everyone who
• 40:38
  subscribed and that that's a big deal.
• 40:40
  Very exciting. All right, buddy, I'll see you
• 40:43
  in about a week or so. Sounds great.
• 40:46
  Thanks. Be good, all right?