Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Are Dealers Changing The Sports Card Hobby?

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Are Dealers Changing The Sports Card Hobby? · 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. After a one week layoff of each
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other and our introductory song, we're back.
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I'm back. The intro is back.
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Everything's back. We're back from Strongsville.
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How are you? Good.
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It's really good to hear that song again.
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It was funny when I started it up last week and I was like, Oh
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yeah, I was supposed to be playing that.
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It's all good. Well, a lot has transpired.
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It's been 2 weeks since we have taught.
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Well, I guess that's not true. It's been 2 weeks since we sat
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down for a full length, but last week I did hop on for a minute.
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You and Adam did a fantastic job and appreciate you letting me
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and Darren kind of crash the party for a moment of.
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Course it was fun. It was fun.
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You guys had some good stuff to say.
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I listened to it when I returned from my trip.
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So I I listened to it on the way to work on Monday of this past
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week. So we have a lot to cover.
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I have a topic that I haven't even mentioned to you.
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You mentioned a topic and then there's the Strongsville thing.
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Should we start with the Strongsville thing?
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I know it's very played out. I know a lot of people have
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heard stuff, but I do feel like we should at least address it.
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You've never been before this year.
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What it What were your takeaways?
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The takeaways that the card show is fine, it's good.
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I think it's a little overblown by a lot of the people probably
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because there are so many people who go who are Youtubers.
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And so it's becomes this massive topic and it feels like you're
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going into the greatest card show in history and it's all
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vintage. And and it was it was a good it
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was a good show for sure. But the people were the draw
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that I recorded the video today that I'm going to air Thursday.
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So before this happens, but I talked about how I've kind of
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shifted a little bit last week I was saying this will be my one
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and only time at Strongsville. And now after going and hanging
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out with you and all the guys, I'm thinking I might want to go
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again because it wasn't the show.
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The show was good. I don't want this to come off as
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like anti Strongsville in any way.
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It's fine. But it was all the opportunities
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to hang out with people and not get forced into like at the
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National, there's a lot of opportunities to hang out with
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people, but it's all very controlled by the National and
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at this it's not. What did you think of the Four
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Collectors Trade night? So I'm not a trade night guy.
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I didn't bring anything to trade or sell and I didn't have any
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money left because I had blown my budget.
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It was it was good. It felt like it could have been
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in a rum twice as big and it still would have been fine.
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It was very tightly packed. Not not tightly packed like
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upstairs at the National in 2025, but it was tightly packed.
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I walked around it probably four or five times comfortably.
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It wasn't like, you know, you couldn't get through, although
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there were times where it was a little bit tight.
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It was good. It didn't feel corporate at all.
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There were a couple of vendors, but that didn't there wasn't
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like a I don't even know where they set up officially.
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Am I am I thinking about the right thing or am I thinking
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about Chris's setup? I'm trying to remember how the
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two were set up. Well, I would say that, you
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know, right when you walked in, there was a little bit of an
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auction wire presence and then there was a, a little bit of a
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Howie Howard Chasser presence, right when you walked in the
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room, which they, you know, help pay for the event.
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And, but, but you're right. And, and the, the one response,
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I'd say to that it was a little tight.
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That's a good thing. That means that it's popular and
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that means that it's growing. And I think that and I, I know
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you agree with this, but and I know that I think that in the
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future we're ready to move up to an even bigger venue to host it
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because it's pretty cool. Yeah, and there was a a side
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room. I must have spent an hour in the
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side room just talking to various people, other Youtubers,
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viewers, commenters, and that was a lot of fun.
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And they had food that was paid for by somebody, Theo probably.
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I see CIAI. I'm getting them all confused
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like you. I guess it was CIA and Howard
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Chaser were at the entrance of that one and they were the
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sponsors of that event and then Auction Wire was the sponsor and
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had more of a presence at Chris's event.
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But I might be screwing this all up.
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But those, those 3 entities, their presence, their
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contributions to make those special events is very much
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appreciated. Any other thoughts on
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Strongsville? Well, OK, let me ask you, let me
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ask you a different question then you.
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You talked about the National and you talked about you maybe
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you will go back to Strongsville and you talked about the
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National is more controlled it if if next year you could only
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go to one of the two, which would you go to?
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The National. And the reason is because of
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what? It's it's, I don't know, maybe
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partly tradition. This would be this year's my
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fifth year in a row. And I feel like it's one of
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those things that I would really like to go to every year.
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It's it's bigger. It's there are a lot more people
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there. That's I don't, I don't think I
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have a really good reason. I think people could easily pick
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apart my reason on this, which is fine, I like the National a
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lot. Yeah, no, I, I understand the
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appeal. There are a lot of things
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happening. It's it's sort of like, you
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know, the winter meetings for baseball.
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It's like everyone's kind of there.
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So anybody you want to see or talk to, you have the
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opportunity. And oh, by the way, there is
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just an enormity of cards and vendors and, you know,
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announcements and things. I, I don't know, did I tell you
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this already? I told a few people there and
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everybody agreed. You could very easily be a very
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successful cult leader. A cult leader a.
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Cult leader People follow you, people want to be around you,
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people want to just be with. You.
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You're silly. It's, it's quite amazing.
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I witnessed it really for the first time other than, you know,
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myself. But there were times where
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people would come up to me and say, Mike, hey, man, I, I love
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what you do, but I'm looking for Greg.
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Have you seen Greg around? And I, I, well, that is sweet of
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you to say. And I will say that I met a lot
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of new people, a lot of new faces, made a lot of new
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friends. And I very much appreciate
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anybody who had the willingness to come up and introduce
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themselves to me because I know I would struggle to do that if
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there was someone else that I, you know, I mean, there, there
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are times that I saw, I've seen people at shows that I kind of
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watch and I'm like, I'm not going to go bug them, you know,
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and I'm not going to do that. But like as the person who is
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being approached, it's a compliment.
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So it is, it was very, it was very nice to experience that.
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Speaking of new friends, you know, I, I did meet several new
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people that I now consider friends, one of which is my
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friend Bob. And did you meet Bob?
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You, you met Bob Ray. Yeah, yes, I sat at the end at
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lunch and paid for lunch for everybody.
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Yes, that's right. And he, he was talking when we
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got back, he was texting me and he was texting Darren.
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He was talking about, man, after seeing some of that stuff, I'm
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looking at my collection differently.
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I'm wondering, you know, is this, do I want to go in a
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different direction with my collection?
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And if so, then I, I have a bunch of stuff to sell.
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And and I literally, I'm not just saying this, I was like,
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what I need to do is I should reach out to him and say, if you
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decide that you want to go in a different direction and sell
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stuff, you should reach out to Chris Sewell.
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Like literally, like I know he's a, you know, he's a sponsor of
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the channel and you know, this is our my little moment to, you
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know, shout him out. But literally like this guy Bob,
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who I consider now a friend, if he decided he wanted to sell a
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big chunk of his very impressive collection, I'll say I that's
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one of the places that I would literally say, you know, if you
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want to auction it, I would say I would definitely go CIA,
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especially with what he has. If you want to sell it as a
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collection. I do know CIA buys collections,
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but I also know Chris lives not that far from him and would I'm
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sure be willing to travel to him to see what he's got and make
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him an offer. So with that said, you know
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chrissewellsewellsportscards@gmail.com again, collector, investor,
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dealer.com, I literally would recommend him to my friend who
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potentially would be willing to sell some cards.
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Absolutely no question about it. And I, I've recommended Chris
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offline to various people. I shouldn't say offline, but
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people who have reached out to me to say, hey, would you be
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interested in buying my collection or would you be
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interested in buying this portion of my collection?
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I say this is great, an awesome collection.
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You should reach out to Chris. And, and he's not even
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sponsoring those types of communications.
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It's just that I truly believe in the Chris Sewell product.
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Yeah, I do too. And trust is a big deal.
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And and if we have time I'd like to get to potentially our third
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topic is very much about the whole dealer component of of
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card shows and a lot of kind of side conversation.
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Several different people came up to me and we're seeing the same
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sort of thing and I wanted to bring it up today.
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But first you had a topic that you wanted to bring up and then
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talk about and then I want to wrap it up with mine.
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You're holding up what looks to be like, I don't know, a, a best
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seller book or something. What?
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What are you holding there? This is midlife card collecting
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stories by Greg Miller. Greg is a good friend of mine
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and I bought I bought this book from you, Greg, obviously at the
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National and. No, at the Strongsville.
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Yeah, that's, that's what I said.
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And when whenever you hear your friend is writing a book, you're
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kind of like, obviously I'm going to buy this.
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But then there's also this kind of trepidation, like am I going
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to have to pretend that I like this book?
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I do not have to pretend. I legitimately loved it and it
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not only are they great stories, but it's very well written.
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You're not a professional writer, but it's still very well
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written and the stories are great.
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I've read 165 of the 100 and what, 95 pages, something like
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that. I'm almost done with it and I
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read it on my 2 very short flights.
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The thing that gets me, not only are the stories is childhood,
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the vulnerability that you share, but our childhoods were
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remarkably similar, scary similar.
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Yeah, they're we. Yeah, Go ahead.
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I'm sorry. My parents got divorced when I
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was in 3rd grade. You were very young.
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You don't remember when your parents.
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Divorced. It was about first grade
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Kindergarten to 1st grade. I literally lost about a year,
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which tells you something I remember more about preschool
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than I do about like kindergarten and the start of
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first grade. Cards were a thing between US
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and our father. Our mothers were supportive.
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I'm trying to think I should have written, I'm 6 foot two.
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I'm 235 lbs. I'm crammed into these airline
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seats. I can't, like, pull out a pen
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and write, take notes. And I didn't have my phone.
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It was deep in my backpack. I wish I had taken notes because
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there were a million things where I was like, this is the
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same thing. And then your dad took care of
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your stepmother late in her life after some sort of health issue.
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January 5th, 2002, my stepmother had a brain aneurysm that
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disabled her very, very badly. And my dad retired early at the
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age of 51 from teaching. He was an elementary school
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teacher. He took early retirement, which
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of course means very low income, and took care of my stepmother
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for the next 9 years. And she was also an elementary
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school teacher and had to take very early retirement.
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And he took care of her for nine years.
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And so that's another thing where I was like, man, this is
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so similar. Yeah, it is it it it is.
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There are a lot of similarities and I know over the years us
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talking a lot of these things have kind of, you know, come up,
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but you basically had it all laid out and 11 swoop, you know,
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to kind of recollect and you mentioned that I shared some
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vulnerabilities. Like that's one of the things
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about me that is a blessing about me and a curse about me is
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that I, I'm not a private person and I'm, I'm very open with
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things I've experienced. And one of the reasons I think
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that that is, is I feel like there are other people out there
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that have maybe gone through things that I've gone through or
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experienced things I've experienced.
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And sometimes it's just nice to know that other people dealt
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with that crap too. And it makes you feel more
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normal 'cause sometimes when you're going through stuff,
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whether it be a health issue or an emotional issue or a guilt
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issue or a family issue or a tragedy in the family or
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something, you, you kind of go like, why is this happening to
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me? But then when you hear other
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people say that they went through it, I think it makes you
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feel more normal. And, and I've always looked at
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some of the some of the, you know, we all have junk and some
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of the junk that I've been through.
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If I talk about it and it could help somebody else, then this
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negative could actually do some good.
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And and when you say the vulnerability, there's a chapter
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in there where I talk about the kid down the street, McHale.
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That must be at the end, I haven't read that one.
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No, no, no. It's early on.
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You'll know in a second. McHale.
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Mikail and. Oh yes, MIKAIL.
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Yeah, yeah. OK, so Mikail and and he lived
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on the corner. We didn't hang out a lot, but we
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hung out some and he was a year younger and he was an athletic
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kid and we ended up at his house trading some cards and and I
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very much got the better end of the deal and I, I have some
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carried. What's that?
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The Sandburg Yes, and I've, I've carried guilt about it and I
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talk about how I've carried guilt about it for I mean, this
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must this would have happened in about 1989.
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So this is a very long time ago. And I still feel a little bit of
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guilt over the fact that he got at the time, maybe a dollar card
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and I got like a like a $20 card.
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And, and here's actually a, a cool thing that happened, which
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I've not shared with anybody. So I'll share it with you right
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now. So when I got to Strongsville
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on, on Thursday, you know, I say, hey, Mookie, come with me.
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I have a gift for you. And I gave him a little gift and
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he said, well, I have something for you too.
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So let me swing by my room. So you got a little a little
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gift and that's something that a lot of us do from time to time,
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you know, and you know, sometimes I mail stuff to
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people, sometimes they hand it to him in person, but just
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little stuff. And he hands me this stack of
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stuff. And on the bottom was a card in
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a screw down and it was an 83 Ryan Sandberg rookie card.
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And he and I go, this is cool, thanks.
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And he's like, now you can let it go.
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And I'm like, what? He goes, I brought that so that
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at the four collectors trade night, you can give it to a kid
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and you can let go of the guilt of having taken advantage of
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someone by returning the favor. And you can give somebody a Ryan
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Samberg rookie so that nobody so that you won't have to carry
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that with you anymore. You you're going to level the
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playing field. That's powerful.
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And that's Mookie. I mean, that's, that's Mookie
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Chilson in a nutshell, is he's that kind of thoughtful guy and
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he's the kind of guy who's who always wants to help people and
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and he and but what it also did for me is in the book, it helped
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it, it made me go. So that did come across like, I
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don't know how people in digest what I my words are, you know,
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in written form, but he he felt my guilt.
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He it it, it came through to the reader and that made me feel
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good too, that that like I accomplished my goal of, you
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know, there's all these things that happen in card collecting
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beyond just the cards. And so it was a really cool
19:25
thing. And so, you know, I was, I was,
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you know, doing books and handing out books to people who
19:32
pre-ordered the books. And so I was slammed and you
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know, our, our good buddy Jake Wax pack Wisdom, who's, you
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know, one of the top 150 collectors in New England, as
19:41
far as I can tell. He, he was standing there.
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I said, will you do me a favor 'cause I brought it to trade
19:47
night? I said, will you find a kid and
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will you hand him this card and just just hand him the card and
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say, this is for you, Enjoy it. And so he went around and he
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found a kid and he handed him the card and, and funny enough,
20:01
Tony. Southern Collector, 14 Tony.
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Ended up interviewing that kid on his channel and so I got to
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see the kid with the card even though I had Jake.
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Be the you know. Conduit.
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The conduit to accomplish the task that Mookie set in motion.
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Wow, it's a great book. I recommend anybody buy it, read
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it. It's, it's 200 pages, but it,
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the print is pretty big and it's a quick, quick read.
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You know, you talk about holding that guilt and, and our
20:44
similarities to each other. When I was younger up until I
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was like 25 ish, I had no filter and I would just say things and
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they could be kind of mean. And, and as soon as they would
20:54
come out of my mouth, I'd be like, oh, man, I can't believe I
20:56
said that. And when I was in my like 30s,
20:59
probably I went on this kind of, I kept, I would think about
21:02
certain things that I had said to people still after all these
21:06
decades. And I went on this kind of tour
21:09
where I would go and I'd find this person on Facebook or
21:11
somewhere else and I would private message them and say,
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hey, you probably don't Remember Me and you don't remember this
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happening. But I said this to you one time
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when we were like 14 years old. And I've carried this guilt
21:23
about it. I just want to apologize and the
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responses to those were amazing. For the people who responded, it
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was it was very powerful and the guilt left me of all those
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people that I had talked to. It was great.
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I had. AI still have one, by the way,
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where I was mean to a kid on a tennis court in high school.
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I was a tennis player and I said something unintentional.
21:51
Just it was the way I said it was meant to be fun and playful.
21:58
And I still think about it 30 years later, Greg.
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There's a kid who went to the same elementary school as me and
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his name was Lalo. LALO.
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Lalo Salamanca. No, that wasn't, I'm not going
22:15
to say his last name, but Lalo, he had, he, he was a little bit
22:21
different and but he, he was a little bit behind a lot of us at
22:27
our grade level. So he would go to different
22:30
support classes and things. And he was kind of like a
22:34
outlier at the school. And me and my buddy Eric, we
22:39
kind of, we kind of embraced him and, and like there were times
22:43
that like you had to pick your groups with your desks and you'd
22:47
move your desks and we'd end up picking our group.
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And then Lalo didn't have a group.
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And even though Lalo was kind of a pain in the ass, we would say,
22:54
Lalo, you want to sit in our group.
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And like we always kind of included him when nobody else
22:59
included him. And Lalo came from a troubled
23:04
home for sure. Like very troubled home.
23:07
And in like 7th grade or 6th or 7th grade, I guess, I think it
23:12
was about 7th grade, my brother comes home, This is back when
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you're right on the edge of still trick or treating 'cause
23:19
you want the candy, but you probably shouldn't be trick or
23:21
treating. And my brother went out trick or
23:24
treating with his friends. And all of a sudden somebody in
23:27
dark clothing jumps out from the bushes and says, give me all
23:32
your candy. And my brother looks and it's
23:35
Lalo. And he's like, Lalo, knock it
23:37
off. And Lalo's all give me, I'm not
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Lalo, give me your candy. And my brother's like, I'm not
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giving you the candy. And Lalo goes, well, then we'll
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split it. Give me half of your candy.
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This is how simple Lalo was. Well, my brother just said,
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dude, just take the candy. If you need it that bad, just
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take it. So he took Lalo, took the candy.
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Lalo ended up few years later, he ended up in prison for
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manslaughter. And so Lalo has been through it.
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OK, He's been through it. I get a message, this is maybe 7
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or 8 years ago. So 30 years later, I get a
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message from Lalo on on Facebook and it says, I wanted to
24:27
apologize for that time that I took your candy because you are
24:34
always good to me and you always took me in when other people
24:37
didn't. And I shouldn't have done that.
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And I'm sorry. And I said, you know, Lalo, this
24:44
is a really sweet thing for you to say.
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It was actually my brother, which was, you know, I'm, you
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know, it's not, it's not uncommon.
24:52
He would mistake it. But but it even a guy who spent
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time in prison and was sitting there, it was eating him up that
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he did that. It's amazing what guilt will do.
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And that's one of the reasons I wanted to include that story in
25:06
the book is the trade was a meaningless trade.
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But the theme of that whole chapter was about, you know,
25:14
values and when you trade, some people don't care about value
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and some people do know the value and want to exploit the
25:20
value and then doesn't always feel good.
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And so it, it definitely is, is like a part of the hobby, that
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whole balance of investor, collector, caring about value,
25:34
not caring about it, but but also told through the eyes of,
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you know, like a 10 year old. So.
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Yeah, and your your father's stories about just manipulating
25:47
PSA. Like I shouldn't say he was
25:49
manipulating it, but how manipulatable they?
25:53
Were. Oh yeah, there's some stories
25:56
people really should hear. And then the best story, though,
26:01
and I'm gonna tease it. I'm not gonna tell the story.
26:04
Oh, I know it. What do you think it is?
26:07
The well I named every chapter, and the name of the chapter is
26:11
the needle in the haystack. Yes, the the card from his
26:15
childhood, yeah, is that story was amazing.
26:20
Yeah, it's it's pretty good. It's pretty good.
26:23
And, and I wanted to kind of, yeah, I had to lay the
26:26
groundwork for the whole build up.
26:29
And at times I'm sure people are saying like, what does this have
26:33
to do with anything? But then at the end it all comes
26:37
together and you go, Oh my gosh, it's pretty cool.
26:42
I've gone to bed the last two nights planning on finishing
26:45
reading it and I've just fallen asleep so fast both nights.
26:49
It's all good. I really appreciate the kind
26:52
words about it and I appreciate the fact that you even read it
26:55
like, you know, it's, it was a lot of fun.
26:59
And my, my daughter Molly is a fantastic writer and she is a
27:04
fantastic reader and she's an avid reader.
27:07
And she thought about majoring in English.
27:09
And so I paid her to, to edit it for me.
27:15
And so, you know, when I was looking through it at the end,
27:18
there were a couple of times that there was like a little,
27:20
you know, like, Oh, I missed that.
27:21
And that's like, I look back through the notes and it's not
27:24
that Molly missed it, it's that I missed it when I went back
27:26
there to correct it, you know, But so she, you know, a lot of,
27:31
a lot of the wording that made things flow well was because of
27:38
her expertise. And I've not really talked about
27:40
that, but she deserves some credit in there.
27:44
All right, last topic and multiple people come up to me
27:49
separately and talk about how. New England states are not our
27:56
best topic. No, I don't even care about
28:00
that. They talked about part of what?
28:06
OK, how do I leave this in? So part of what happened because
28:13
the, the, the show provided a lot, a lot of U.S. media passes
28:17
which got us in before the show opened, including Thursday night
28:22
when people were setting up. And what that did is it
28:25
basically had about 15 to 20 people in there seeing things
28:32
that they don't usually see before a show opens.
28:37
And there are things that some of us think that we know what
28:41
happens before a show opens, but until you actually see it and
28:45
then people talk about it and then they talk about it with
28:48
each other that you realize, Oh, and one of the things that
28:53
happens before a show opens and we all kind of know that this
28:57
happens is that the dealers all go around and they buy from each
29:01
other. And what they're doing is
29:05
they're buying at retail because they're buying from another
29:08
dealer. So they go to a show, they go to
29:10
a table, they see a car that looks really nice for the grade
29:14
or it's a, a gem of a card that would be highly desirable card.
29:19
And they go, I can, I'm going to have a bunch of people, I'm
29:21
going to have thousands of people coming through over the
29:23
next few days. I'm going to be able to buy that
29:26
at at their price and and get margin on it.
29:32
And so by the time the show actually opens, a lot of the
29:37
best stuff, a lot of the cream of the crop cards and I appeal
29:41
cards, they've been marked up because they've been bought at
29:46
retail. And then the margin has been put
29:50
on top of that to the point where there were even a couple
29:53
of times that I asked to look at a card in a case.
29:56
And I got the card and I flipped it over to look at the back of
29:59
the card. And the price from the previous
30:01
dealer was still on the back, which was like 15 to 20% less
30:06
than the price that was now on the card with the new sticker.
30:11
And a lot of a lot of collectors and people at the show mentioned
30:17
to me that whole thing. And I feel like it's worthy of
30:22
us talking about because I think it's a thing and I think it's
30:26
something to talk about. And so my question is, did you
30:31
have those conversations at the show, those thoughts at the
30:33
show? What do you think about that
30:35
topic? And then the follow up to it is,
30:39
what do you think that we as collectors who want to be, you
30:44
know, end holders of these items can or should do about it?
30:50
Yeah, so I completely forgot to mention this on any of my
30:52
videos, but I went up to a table and Sky had, I don't know, 8 to
30:56
10 vintage cards from one set. I don't remember what set it
31:01
was, 53 tops maybe. And man, and I was looking at
31:07
them and and I noticed that the mantle was priced very nicely.
31:12
And I said, oh, OK. And he said, well, actually
31:17
those aren't my prices. I haven't put my prices on those
31:21
yet. And I said, but the price is
31:22
right on it. And he said, I just bought those
31:25
this morning before the show started.
31:28
I said, oh, you bought them from somebody who had prices on them
31:31
because I wasn't thinking about other dealers.
31:34
And he said, yeah, a couple tables down, I bought this from
31:37
him. And I said, OK, well, this is
31:41
the price. You've got it labeled here with
31:43
the price and it's sitting out at at your table.
31:46
And he was like, no, that's it's not for sale, so you wouldn't
31:51
sell it to me right now. And he said no, but he had it.
31:54
He put it on display. So it's kind of weird.
32:04
It's a, it's a weird situation because again, we're the
32:06
consumers, but in many cases we're friends with a lot of
32:10
these dealers and we're friendly with a lot of these dealers and
32:13
I know that they've got to make their money.
32:15
Like that's business, like, you know, in any industry that
32:20
you're, you're buying at 1 price and charging me a different
32:23
price. When I go to the snack bar at
32:24
the Little League game, I don't go, Oh my gosh, are you kidding
32:28
me? These Red Vines or two bucks
32:30
when they're $0.50 at Costco. But that's just part of the
32:35
deal. But it feels a little bit
32:38
different with this. Is it different because it's so
32:41
personal to us and it's not a disposable thing?
32:45
You're nobody is going into Costco, buying Red Vines for
32:51
$0.50 and then setting up as a seller inside of Costco and
32:55
selling them for $2.00. That is true.
32:58
That is true. Imagine if that is different all
33:01
of the red vines there's no more in Costco and they just set up
33:05
shop and say OK I'm selling red vines for $2.00 each.
33:09
But don't you think it like an auto mall?
33:12
There might be times that the Honda dealership buys a couple
33:16
of used cars from the Toyota dealership to put on the Honda
33:20
dealership lot. Do you think like that stuff
33:22
happens or is this just a unique thing to cards with a D I I?
33:31
Could see that happening I guess, but I'm guessing only if
33:37
they know they have a buyer for them.
33:41
Unless they're low on inventory I I guess I could see it.
33:46
Sure, that's a good example. So, so like, I know a lot of
33:50
people were selling cards to dealers at the show.
33:54
A lot of us brought cards to show, you know, we to sell.
33:57
Some of us worked out deals ahead of time.
33:59
Some of us found other collectors, you know, set up in
34:02
the lobby of the hotel and we sold it to each other.
34:06
And then some people ended up going to a dealer and getting
34:10
cashed out. I mean, what is the move?
34:15
What is the play for us collectors who are trying to
34:18
transfer these cards into these other cards?
34:23
Because that's one of the reasons that the trade night is
34:25
pretty cool is because in theory, you could sticker things
34:30
at at retail, which feels like, wait, I don't have to pay eBay
34:33
fees. I don't have to pay table fees.
34:35
I don't have to give them their margin and get 80% or whatever
34:40
it is. And it's like as as us as
34:43
collectors to have that opportunity is incredible.
34:48
It is is the move to do more trade nights is the move to, you
34:55
know, if, if Theo's listening, he's yelling at the screen right
34:58
now. Will you sell it through CIA,
35:00
You know, put it up for auction on CIA, which to be honest with
35:04
you, in a lot of cases you're going to do a lot better doing
35:07
that than if you go up to the dealer and just get cashed out.
35:11
If you just, if you're going to sell it anyway, instead of going
35:13
to the dealer and getting cashed out, send it to Theo and let him
35:16
put it up for auction and get cashed out that way like that.
35:19
That is an option. What do we do about this?
35:23
Or do we just accept that this is how it is?
35:27
I don't have a good solution for you.
35:28
I think this is just part of the symptom of what's happening with
35:32
and I don't want to say it's a problem.
35:34
Car values are are skyrocketing. And but, but, but is that why I,
35:39
my argument I made to it, the argument I made to a lot of
35:44
people that came up and brought this topic up to me is, is they
35:47
were like in price. They're they're jacking it up to
35:48
120%. And it's like, well, yeah.
35:52
Because they're not buying it wholesale and selling it retail,
35:56
they're buying from the other dealers at retail and then
35:59
they're selling at retail plus 15% or 20% or whatever the
36:03
margin is that they try to get. So I think one of the reasons
36:08
prices are skyrocketing is because dealers are having a
36:11
hard time getting inventory now, and because of that, they're
36:15
buying at retail price and jacking it up.
36:18
So when you walk around the room and you showed up with all this
36:20
money in your pocket and you go, well, I guess I don't have to
36:23
pay sales tax, I don't have to pay shipping, I'll pay 10% over
36:26
comp. It's not that big a deal.
36:28
I like this one. I'm here, I'll just buy it.
36:31
I think part of the reason that the prices are skyrocketing is
36:34
because of this. Yeah, I, I agree for sure.
36:39
I think there are a myriad reasons why prices are going up
36:44
and that's, that's one of them. And this is a symptom of it.
36:47
We're we're willing to pay more. And so we see a car that we see
36:50
priced at $1000, even though that person just bought it at
36:54
comp, which was 900 probably. And now they're turning it
37:00
around an hour later and selling it to us for 900 and 75950.
37:06
There was a card that I couldn't stop thinking about all weekend.
37:10
I saw it on, I saw it on Thursday night.
37:12
But you know, they, they had told us they'd give us the media
37:17
passes, but they asked that we not do any transactions until
37:20
the show opened, which quite frankly, I've had media passes
37:25
to a number of shows in the past.
37:27
And, and I've always kind of played by that rule, even though
37:30
it was never told to me, it just kind of felt right because
37:35
otherwise I'm doing what we're talking about right now, which
37:37
doesn't seem fair to me. And so I've never bought a card
37:41
before a show opened, even when I've been set up as a dealer.
37:46
But I saw this card and I, I mean, I, I really liked the
37:51
card. It was a AUS caramel.
37:55
They have the different color back, back backgrounds of the US
37:59
caramels. And it was a, what is it, 32 US
38:04
caramel, I think. And it was the president's set
38:07
and it was his Abraham Lincoln. And they have like a blue
38:11
background, a red background and orange background.
38:13
And there's rarity issues. And it was the orange one.
38:17
It was just this, it was just a beautiful example of the card
38:20
and, and it's never been a card that I'd ever considered.
38:23
I was aware of the card, but until I saw that one in person
38:26
in front of me and I'm looking and I'm like, man, this thing is
38:28
really cool. Even though it's, I'm like, I
38:33
can't buy this. This is like a spur of the
38:35
moment thing. So I, the guy has $1200 on it
38:40
and I asked to look at it and took a picture of it.
38:44
And he goes, I'd take 11. And I'm like, OK, so then I step
38:47
back and I start comping it and it's like, it's like a $650 card
38:53
in that grade. And I'm like, you have it for
38:57
12. You immediately tell me you'd
38:59
take 11 and it's a $650 card. But here I am still thinking
39:06
about it going like, what? I just really like it.
39:08
I think I want it. Because you brought money and
39:11
you want to spend that money. Yeah, and I resisted and I ended
39:17
up not buying it, but I I can't stop thinking about it.
39:22
And it's not like suddenly now that card is on my list and oh,
39:26
I'm going to go get it wasn't the card, it was that card.
39:30
It was that one. And the way that one jumped in
39:33
the brightness of the orange of that one, in the centering of
39:36
that one, in the symmetry of that one, it was in a brand new
39:39
PSA three slab. It was gorgeous card and and I
39:46
did I felt like I was held hostage.
39:48
I was just like, this is way too much.
39:52
But it's not like these fall from trees and it's not like
39:56
they look like this. Most of the time I can't buy it
40:00
and I didn't buy it. And I texted Mookie today and I
40:02
said I was in the middle of work.
40:04
I was like in the middle of my class and I was given a test.
40:07
I go Mookie, I think I made a mistake.
40:09
I should have bought that Abraham Lincoln card and he
40:12
goes, well, I looked on Sunday and it hit sold.
40:14
It was gone. I go, well, that doesn't make me
40:16
feel any better. I still should have bought it,
40:18
but it was double comp. It was double comp.
40:25
What is that like? Could you imagine?
40:27
OK, you set up, you've said you've been a dealer before for
40:30
a minute. You were talking about how you
40:32
were going to start buying collections and you're going to
40:34
be a dealer. Could you imagine if if you
40:37
looked up the comp of a of a card and then you put a sticker
40:42
on it that was double comp and then you, you put it out there
40:46
and you look people in the eye with a straight face when they,
40:49
when they asked to look at it and say, you know, I'd take 1100
40:53
even though it's worth 6 Like, isn't that crazy?
40:58
If it's a, if it's a really special card and it looks better
41:02
than the other examples that have sold, I can see a a.
41:06
A markup double comp though, is very very high.
41:10
It's it's a little tough to swallow.
41:14
Yeah. I paid up for my my Oscar
41:16
Robertson. Your Oscar Robertson is really
41:20
nice. It's.
41:21
Super nice. It's really.
41:23
Nice. Way better than the other ones
41:25
that had sold recently in the PSA 3.
41:28
And so I paid up a little bit and I'm very happy I did.
41:31
She knew a. Really nice card, yeah.
41:33
She knew what she had. She wasn't going to budget.
41:35
Is a really nice card. Thank you.
41:39
I didn't get to see a lot of other people buy stuff.
41:43
I I usually like to kind of like people go, I just bought this
41:47
and I'm like, wait, what? Like normally I feel like I'm
41:50
around when people are buying stuff.
41:52
The only card that I kind of was there for is when David Chase
41:56
bought his Sandy Koufax rookie, which I captured the after
42:02
effects of Oh, I guess. And then I had another buddy buy
42:05
a bunch of pirate cards, a different David that I'm friends
42:08
with and but. By the way, David, David Chase
42:12
is a blast to hang out with. Dude he's AI, keep telling him.
42:15
I say 2026 is the year of the chase.
42:20
It is David. He is the breakout star of 2026.
42:25
Yeah, did he really get a 4849 leaf, Jackie?
42:30
Yeah, and a three and it's gorgeous.
42:33
Yeah. Gorgeous.
42:36
Yeah, that's, that's pretty nice.
42:38
Yeah, I I liked him a lot. I'm a big.
42:42
Fan, he's a good guy. He's a good guy.
42:44
In fact, I I've talked to him many times and texted with him
42:49
many times since. In fact, as my dad and I were
42:52
driving to the A's game last night, he was on the phone
42:56
talking with us on speaker for quite a bit.
43:00
Yeah. Did you see the the sports cards
43:03
live that Saturday night? No.
43:06
Oh my gosh, you missed out. So let me tell you this quick
43:10
story and then we'll wrap it up. So it's Saturday night, it's
43:14
now, it's East Coast time. So Sports Cards Live with Jeremy
43:18
Lee starts at 10:00 PM and at about 10:15 David texts me and
43:27
Petty, 'cause I think he thought everyone else was asleep and he
43:30
said I'm going to go on Sports Cards Live at about 11:00 to
43:35
11:15. If you want to come on, come on
43:38
up. And Petty goes, I'm out.
43:40
Like Petty had a long night. Petty was hitting the moonshine
43:43
in the parking lot the night before.
43:45
So he was, he was toast. He's like, I'm out, dude.
43:48
And I'm like, I'm like, I'm editing my video.
43:51
If I get it done in time, I'll pop in and I'll hop on the
43:53
screen with you for a SEC. So I go up about 11:15 and he's,
44:00
he's live, he's live streaming on sports cards live.
44:03
I could hear him as I knock on the door and David's like, hold
44:06
on, someone's at the door. So he's, I'm not going to tell
44:09
you who it is. So I'm sitting there on the side
44:12
and he goes, he does this whole introduction.
44:14
All right, this next person is going to come up, blah, blah,
44:16
blah, blah, blah. And then I walk on and then I do
44:19
like 4-5 minutes with Jeremy. Well, while I'm on petty texts
44:25
and he says, what room are you in?
44:27
So I tell him, I go, we're in this room.
44:30
He goes, I'll be right there. Then as I'm still on and you can
44:34
probably see a couple of times I'm looking at my phone.
44:36
Tony Lebrik. He he texts, he says, what room
44:39
are you in? And I tell him because they're
44:42
they're watching from their room and they see me on and they're
44:44
like, this looks like fun. So then Peddie's in the
44:48
background, Tony's in the background, the door keeps
44:51
knocking, and I go, oh, you've got a line of people now, but
44:54
I'm not going to tell you who's next.
44:56
So then David comes in, he introduces Petty, Petty does his
44:59
thing, he goes off. David then introduces Tony.
45:03
Then I get a text and it's Mookie.
45:05
And Mookie goes, what room are you in?
45:07
So Mookie comes up, you know, And so Mookie's sitting there.
45:10
So we're sitting there on the couch and you can hear us off
45:12
camera just laughing our butts off 'cause this is just like,
45:15
it's wild. And and then Mookie goes I'm in,
45:19
put me on. And we're like, really?
45:21
Because Mookie doesn't go on, he doesn't show his face.
45:24
And so Mookie hops on for like 2 minutes, you know, just a hello,
45:29
you know, sort of quick shows his face and it was, and you
45:34
could just hear us laughing. So this would have been probably
45:38
at about the hour and 20 minute mark of sports cards live.
45:43
So if if you've not seen it, check it out.
45:46
It was a riot. It was just and we were just
45:49
cackling like hens. It was a good time, man.
45:54
It was a great. Time.
45:55
Cleveland's hard to get to for me.
45:57
Gosh, it's hard to get. There, it's not even easy for
45:59
me. It's such a stupid two Why would
46:02
I need two flights from Maine? The flights are one of them was
46:06
49 minutes, Greg and the other was an hour and a half.
46:11
I had a 3 1/2 and a 2 1/2 and the problem is is if I have one
46:16
get delayed then I'm out. I mean, if the first one gets
46:19
delayed, I'm done. Yeah, I had two hour 2 1/2 hour
46:23
layover and a two hour layover. And that's the Safeway to do it.
46:27
But then you have the long layover.
46:29
Right. Yeah, but.
46:31
I flew the second leg there and the first leg back with Darren
46:35
cause Darren's the Denver airport.
46:37
So if I'm going to have a layover, I'm like, it might as
46:39
well be in Denver 'cause then I could hop on.
46:41
So Darren and I just got aisle seats across the aisle from each
46:44
other and we just sat there and talked.
46:46
So that leg each way went much faster 'cause we were just like
46:50
having a good time. But all right, 47 minutes in,
46:57
we've, I mean, we've basically solved all the world's problems.
47:00
We got Lalo that's in the can now we've got Mikhail in the
47:04
can. We've got, you know, all you and
47:07
your, all of your removing yourself from the, what's the,
47:13
is it Billy Madison where he calls and he, he apologizes and
47:18
the guy's got like people to kill this and he like crosses
47:20
them off. Yeah, exactly.
47:24
So you, you got crossed off a couple of those lists.
47:26
That's fantastic. So we've accomplished a lot
47:29
today. It's kind of amazing how many
47:31
times we've solved all the world's problems.
47:34
I mean, once a week, someone's got to do it.
47:36
Yeah. I mean, put us in charge of this
47:38
whole Iran thing, we'll get it knocked out.
47:43
Sure. All right, buddy, Another week
47:48
down. Thanks for getting Adam in here
47:51
last week. Adam, you did a great job.
47:53
We appreciate you covering me as I was traveling and in the air.
47:58
And another one down. I don't know which one this is.
48:02
I think we're we're I think we this might be surface issues
48:06
number like, I don't know, 23. It's been, it's been a minute,
48:16
bro. I.
48:17
Could look it up? You want me to look it up?
48:19
Months. It's got to be 26.
48:23
Oh, I'm going to find out right now.
48:25
I'm going to find out right now. It is.
48:30
This is surface issue, bro. This is surface issues #32 what?
48:38
Yeah, isn't that crazy? That's wild, and we've each only
48:42
missed two of them. It's pretty good.
48:46
Yeah. So we've reached on 30 surface
48:48
issues, unbelievable. Say to our listeners, you're
48:53
welcome. Yeah.
48:54
And I think that we've made about $2.50 per episode, so the
49:00
pay has been fantastic. All right, another one down.
49:07
We'll be back next week.