See it work all right, Okay, before my fucking shit goes up.
My light's been sick and what's up everybody? And welcome Episode one hundred and
eighty one of Let me get that potograph our Postment Collectible special Scott, What
is going on? Man living a life? Man living the life? Yeah,
I know. We're rolling a little bit late this week due to some
scheduling issues and some late trips getting back and some storms and dog issues and
kid issues. And my plane got delayed for about seven and a half eight
hours. And when I finally got out of Vegas, we go to get
on the plane, and they were asking people, you know, if they
wanted to be on standby, if they would change flights. I had changed
flight vouchers and everything, and I thought the plane was packed. We get
on the plane. There's about six of us on a thirty five row plane
and the entire thing, so I think they were just trying to get us
all to change tickets. They didn't have to make the flight period, That's
probably That's probably what it is, which is surprising because usually they need the
plane back wherever going for the morning. I was on a flight pre nine
to eleven once coming from Fort Myers to Chicago. I was traveling with a
guy and it was literally just the two of us and three flight attendants on
the flight. And that's the reason. The only reason they made it was
they took you know, they took the flight was because they needed the plane
back in Chicago the next morning. And we were throwing a football around in
the aisles and you know, you know, flight attendantion like here, you
know, just whatever whatever you want from the bar, you know, the
bar Khart. And it was had this not been a red eye arriving around
three am, there probably would have been some football playing. There was just
I think six people sleeping at that point. Yeah, it sounds about right.
I would have been hitting up the bar. I don't yeah, yeah,
I may or may not have during my seven hour delay in the Las
Vegas Airport, heavy on the may chance. But and I that's the most
dangerous airport in the world to get delayed in. It is you got the
slot machines there. I mean, you can get in a lot of trouble
in it are every concourse is a fricking mall. Like it's a mall too,
Like you got you could go shopping at lids, you could go like
you spent play slot machines. You can do whatever the hell you wanted in't
that airport? Yeah, it's it's absolutely insane that you know that is like
I dread getting delayed there just because I wind up coming home even broker than
I was when I left. Right. Yeah, So but that's this week.
This week, guys, is going to be a shorter episode than when
we got a couple of things we're gonna cover today, but mostly we're gonna
do a mint recap, come over, go over some of the big things
that went on there, and some big news that's about to drop. We're
kind of kind of semi break it to you. We kind of broke it
on Hobby News Daily, the new website there I'm writing for a couple of
days ago, but we're really gonna dive into it a little bit more today.
Then, we have an awesome update regarding our interview with John Scanlin from
a few weeks ago. I got a phone call from him today and a
really cool phone call that he got after our interview, and I was I
was pleasantly surprised when you send me that text earlier today about it with the
details about that, but we will get into that at the end of the
show tonight. Um, and it is going to be a quickie compared to
normal, yes, or or so we or so we think right now we
dude, we can we can do an entire like three week segment on you
know what happened at the Mint? Yeah? Uh, you know going forward?
And you know, it kind of makes me really look forward to the
National this year because if all that stuff happened at the Mint, magine what
is going to happen. Yeah here in Chicago and July. And I've already
heard some rumblings of some stuff and I heard at the Mint that was being
planned for the National. Talk to quite a few people there, and and
yeah, the National is definitely going to be crazy. And I would expect
quite a quite a lot to be announced at the National. And you know
how it is not a month before the National Normally a big scandal comes up
and then a lot of big news drops and then we have the National.
So I'm sure we'll get that here in a couple of and about a month
or two anyway leading up to it, I'm thinking we're probably gonna have several
scandals that bop before that even you know, that time frame even hits so
absolutely all right, so you were there, you were on the ground.
Yeah, your overall impression of this year's meant compared to last year's absolutely okay.
Well, the first of all, I'll say, the entire weekend was
awesome. This year. I did yet to stay at the MGM compared to
not at the actual MGM, which is where it was held, So that
was very nice, cutting down on a lot of travel and a lot of
carrying boxes and things like that, and saving a little bit of money as
well. But for the first thing I do want to say is last year
was very much them testing the waters and it was very much geared as a
as a trade show. And that's kind of what I mentioned on this show
earlier that you know, this isn't your regular old card show. Don't expect
to see dollar boxes, don't expect to see smaller stuff, Expect to see
big time displays and then more of a trade show field. That's how it
was last year. Man, this year, so many people brought out the
dollar boxes, the lower end slabs, like really, you see, I
was out of the impression that you that the dealers weren't allowed to do that
well Game Day Cards, which we went myself, Jared and Mark from Double
a Mint down in Orlando, who was just featured on most expensivest with what's
her name two chains they were. We all went with Jeff Wilson from Sports
Card Investor down to Game Day Sports checked all that out. If you watch
Jeff's video, you can see me playing NBA jam and kicking some asks with
Tim Hardaway and Christmas maman as they shot some b roll footage. But they
set up and had incredible deals all weekend. Multiple other vendors ended up having
amazing boxes of lower end stuff like anything from a dollar to ten dollar cards
all the way up the cards I was expecting to see, like last year,
the ten twenty fifty hundred thousand dollars, you know, iconic cards.
I still had those all over the place, but you had so much more
to choose from that you could actually go sift through a dollar box. Now,
there weren't rows and rows of dealers, but last year there was literally
none. This year there was a good ten fifteen boots that had a lot
of affordable stuff, whether it be waxed cards, everything. And that's another
thing that wasn't there. Last year was whax. You couldn't really find much
outside of people selling expensive cases or people selling you know, a couple of
boxes of the brand new product here and there. Now you know, not
too much. But this year it was everywhere. And you probably last year
you probably saw like individual boxes of let's say late kineties Skybox metal basketball,
right, you know that's the stuff that's a go for ten grand plus a
bob. Yes, and you saw that, you don't get me wrong.
That was all still there. But the mix of the actual card show really
impressed me, and I thought was something that they were severely lacking the year
before. And the reviews I know, and stuff that people saw. It
turned a lot of people off. But if you go to our Instagram at
LGT Podograph, you'll see, as I did a lot of live shows through
there. They're also up on Facebook as well, that the floor was a
good mix of the super high end but also the mid tiers, the low
end. And if you want to discount slabs, shoot, I hit up
a discount slab booths and bought like twenty five thirty slabs or like forty bucks.
There you go. Now, also, I will I do want to
say though, that it is it's not necessarily a fair comparison to compare it
this year's to last year's because the date got moved I think at least twice
last year due to you know, COVID restriction and things like that. So
it's not a you know, it's not apples to apples. Yes, some
of those guys could have backed out. There were other big card shows that
were this weekend, you know, as well Shantilly things like that, so
you know that that was also their last year that people probably couldn't probably backed
out once it was changed and went to Shantilly instead, And this year ended
up coming through the mint like since it wasn't pushed back, they didn't have
to change hotels and all that. So, yeah, this is the original
date for this year. Yes, so there there are some factors that could
have led to the change, but that was that was my biggest surprise was
walking the floor seeing you still saw all the innovation, all the new products
that are coming out soon. Zion Cases debuted their new mag pros, which
are absolutely sick. They're they're basically oversized magnetics, which I'll be doing a
feature on our Instagram in a few weeks showing you guys these in detail,
and you can also check out multiple videos on our ig from the Mint.
But they're basically like an oversized mag that has a little customizable flip on it,
so you can customize your own flip at the top. But it's an
actual mag case and it's not too much bigger than a normal magnetic little smaller
maybe than a PSA slab. But man, these things look good. They're
so nice, they're so cool. Um, they'll be dropping in a few
weeks, I believe, Zion Cases said. But there's a lot of a
lot of really cool innovation that was on the floor Clints. Clint's been working
on those for for a while now, so I'm glad, glad to see
he's finally finally got it down and you know, ready to ready to pop
out. Yep, they're doing a business of business right now. It'll be
available to the general public here in just a few weeks. But I highly
recommend checking out the videos on the magpro was I detailed him in pretty in
depth at the Mint while I was there, But you know, walking the
floor this year, it was amazing once again, running into so many people
that you know, maybe don't even head to the National anymore as much,
or are too busy at the National to talk people like too far or too
far west for the National because you know, it doesn't go it does not
go west to the Mississippi, or it hasn't in at least twenty years.
So you know, being out in Vegas is a little bit different. To
get a lot, they can get there in about an hour plane ride.
You know, it makes it a lot easier for most people on the West
coast. So you did see a couple, you know, a little more
people that you might not normally see like at every you know national things like
that. So it was really nice. It was really cool to see the
overall floor layout. I thought they did a great job organizing the event.
No, there were some major issues with some stuff, but overall they did
a really good job. I do have to slight a couple of companies here
in just a little bit, but they did a really good job with the
floor layout. Panini's booth was awesome. I basically Tops had a really huge
booth. Tops brought back the one of my favorite things. They put up
a wall of cards and it's basically take a card leave a card type of
deal, and I would go up there every now and then and just drop
off an auto when I saw a bunch of kids there or something, you
know, throw something cool in instead of just a bass card. But by
the end of the weekend it was filled with people just hooking that wall up
and seeing the kids run up to it and grab stuff was awesome. And
that's also another thing. I saw a lot of kids this year. So
many kids at this show, and for a show that you see is so
much of a trade show, it surprised me. But these kids were interested
in all of it, and I was quite impressed. The overall presentation was
great. The after hour events, I will say need a little work this
year. You know, when we went to one of the quote unquote parties
or whatever, the carnival or whatever, it was far from it. It
was a room with a couple of drinks, you shoot basketball with Adam Morrison
for about five minutes and then there was nothing to do. Yeah, so
it really wasn't a collector's carnival or whatever, which was supposed to have white
chocolate. He backed out last minute due to travel problems and we ended up
getting Adam Morrison instead, which you know, I'm fine with. But and
Adam Morrison was cool. But the events left a little to be a mat
like, a little more to be desired considering what you were paying to get
into those events, you know what I mean. It really wasn't anything.
It was literally just walking to the room with people that you had just seen
and that you talk to on the floor all day long, see them for
a few minutes and you know, grab some finger food and leave. But
yeah, and with an open bar, right yes, and so other than
that, you know, it was cool. The panels I did, you
know, I was working at the gem Mint PSA booth and so didn't get
a chance to check out a lot of the panels, but did get to
sneak into a couple when I had some time, and they were good.
I thought the hobby Talk was really well. The couple others that I was
able to check out just for some content which I'll be releasing here this week
on video, they were great. I thought they were wonderful. And I
thought the layout this year was great. It was in the same basic general
spot. But I think they're finding their footing. You know, it's here
two of a show. They're trying to do completely different and they're trying something
like no other show in the country does, which I commend them for.
I think the more types of different types of shows we can have, the
better for the hobby, instead of everybody feeling like every shows the same.
And so I love the idea that they're doing. I do think they've got
a couple of things to flesh out, but I mean, compared to year
one, I would say that this was a drastic improvement. I think that
there was still something to be desired and let you know, left to be
desired in my opinion, but the access to everybody was well. Obviously this
is a time where everybody wants to talk and discuss business. A lot of
business was talked in discussed, and you know, I thought it was an
awesome show. I highly and I say this all the time, even if
you're just in this a little bit in the business aspect of the hobby.
It's a show that I highly recommend everybody going to and experiencing at least once.
And now that I've seen what they're building it too, I would almost
extend it to collectors because if you like to see what's coming up in the
hobby in the future if you want to see up close and personal what's going
on in the future, as well as grabbing a bunch of lower and stuff,
checking out dollar boxes, which I ever expected to see there, but
apparently it's going to be a real thing going forward. You know. I
thought it was awesome, so a great year two improvement, although I do
think they're still finding their balance between trade show and card show, if that
makes sense. Well, I think from what I saw, you know,
from all the way out here and you know, the cold hell hole that
we call struggle, I think I'm gonna have to get my ass out there
next year because I think it's one of those things where you know it's not
it's not going to be something that you want to miss. No, I
absolutely think it is a can't miss show. I would definitely put it on
my can't list show from this year. All right, now, speaking of
things that nobody missed, Yeah, um, let's talk about the elephant in
the room. Yes, what the hell was Beckett thinking? Now, I
made a meme. I don't know if you guys saw it. I was
able to get pictures of the entire process of their their first reveal when they
tarped it when they replaced it, and then when it ultimately they pulled it
down. Um, but yes, if you guys did miss it, that
get as soon as it started ripped, opened their curtains to their booth,
revealing and all new grading scale that made absolutely no freaking sense saying that quad
nine five that equal to ten. Now, I'm gonna tell you, I'm
gonna tell you Drew before we get into the meat and potatoes of this doctor.
Doctor Beckett is rolling over in his grave right now, and he's not
even dead. I was about to say he's gonna be on I'll be hotline
this Saturday. No, I dude is rolling over in his grave and he's
not even dead. So look, this was like we you know, when
we had Jeremy and canal on back in August after the National we had the
conversation about the new slab design that the marketing department you know, kind of
got ahead of their skis on and they threw up there any way, and
it created a whole bunch of madness. Yeah, and now we've got this
here we are again. So basically what happened was they were going to change
their grading scale, and if you had, so where a gem Mint is
now going to be a ten but instead of a nine point five. But
they're also going to have the pristine ten. Yeah, they're gonna have the
black label ten. Yes, which is fine, no issue, fine if
you want to distinguish between that stuff. Correct. However, what they didn't
do was make changes to the subgrades. So now in order to be a
gem Mint ten, you had to have at least one of the subgrades be
a ten. Now as part of this also they're adding it. They were
going to add in the nine point five grade, but as a mint plus
grade, very similar to what SGC started, and then CSG you know,
decided to do that as well and things like that. But which okay,
I'm supportive of. Now here's the problem. If you have a card that
is a quad nine five, so all the subgrades are nine fives, what
we in the hobby like to refer to as a true true jem, yeah,
true gem. Immediately once that change gets made to the grading scale,
that card is no longer considered gem mint right because it doesn't have a ten
at least one ten as one of the subgrades. Well, so, initially,
initially they announced that if you had quad nine fives, it would be
a ten, and so a lot of people went and bought on the floor
quad nine fives, expecting to do it day one before it opened. The
preview show, they were talking and saying that you could bring it to them
and get it swapped out with the new flip and everything if you had that
stuff for a small fee. Then the next day it popped up that you
had to have one ten on there to get it popped up. So it
didn't just start with one ten. They were gonna give all Quade nine fives.
They were just gonna give him a bump that they didn't deserve. And
then they got backlash, so they tarked it and then they threw out that
you had to have one ten. And then people still, i mean,
despite the fact that they said screw all the people that you know, went
and bought the Quade nine fives to you know, flip up. Then they
decided to say, you know, hey, all you have to have is
one tens. Then what do you think people do? They go find someone
they have one ten, then they say scratch it. You know, we're
not gonna do any of it. So yeah, a lot of people were
very pissed about that. And now here's what I well, let's let's you
know, let's get into the details. Here's what I don't understand. So
under the current well i'll call it the current grading scale, because they backtracked
everything and said, we're not making any changes yet. We're gonna you know,
you know, well that having read on that, we're gonna we're gonna
get into that in a minute. But I just didn't want to get ahead
of myself there. Yeah. So, according to their grading scale, a
nine point five was a gem mint HM, which means that if you had
quad nine fives as subgrades, the card was gem a mint. That would
be no difference than if you were look at subgrades for a PSA ten,
right, you know, you would see at least three of the four subgrades.
If they did subs on a gemment ten would be three or four set
bridge would be tens. In theory, this is you know, again,
it's not exactly like that, but look, let's you know, I'm trying
to trying to make an Apple's ten. Yeah, right, so why not
change the subgrades as well? Yeah, because you immediately you know, if
you've got quad nine fives. Yeah, and they're gonna say, hey,
it's a ten. You know, it needs to have at least one ten
in order to do that. Well, what if you what if you got
a card that's three nine fives. I'm sorry, that's got two nine fives,
a ten and a nine. Right, yeah, you know, but
what you're really doing is taking all those quad nine fives. Imagine all the
quad nine five Jordan rookies that are out there. Okay, you are immediately
downgrading those, yes, instantly and instantly, and all the National Treasures rpas,
the basketball because that's what Beckett was always known for, if anything,
was the bow men chrome and the ntrpas and stuff, and the Cup rpas
because they wanted those subgrades just in cases, well, the subgrades, but
they also you also gotta keep in mind, you also gotta keep in mind
that PSA in order to get a card like an nt you know, RPA
or something like the cup slabbed. Back in the day it was they had
that. Yeah, it was like this monster size slab. Yes, now
it's different, right, but a lot of those are still going to plus,
they also have the inner liner m uh, you know, the inner
sleeve that they put the card into. Before they put it in the slab.
There's a lot of people that still love that me included. Yeah,
um, you know, because it's that added layer of protection for the card.
If you should, you know, you shake it around or whatever you
should, it's not gonna get you know, it's not. There's no potential
for it to get scratched by the plastic and the slat, which which PSA
is now added to some some cards that fit a criteria on their on their
grading now. But yes, the Inner Sleep definitely helped as well. But
you saw those cards all the time, and the quot the true gems were
the ones that would sell for astronomical amounts compared to having one nine on like
nine. It was a massive increase and like you said, it basically made
the completely downgraded them one thousand reason overnight. Yeah. Instead of those cards
being gem mint in in the like the snap of a finger right there,
it just they became mint plus. Yeah. And had they gone through with
it, the amount of value that that would have wiped out of the hobby,
yes, would have been astronomical. Oh yes, there probably would.
You know, if you take all the cards that are nine fives that are
either quad nine fives or maybe three nine fives and a nine. Um,
you're probably and you downgrade all of those to a mint plus instead of jem
mint. Yeah, you're probably wiping out a good eight figure number easily.
And you know, one of the funniest things was at the at the start
of the show when they announced all this stuff. The line at Beckett and
the conversation around Beckett was massive. After that first preview day, it was
a ghost town the entire weekend. Like I've never seen so many people walk
by a booth and have so much tension at that booth and then that booth
literally be a ghost town the rest of the weekend. It was mind blowing
to me. So before we get into the update, regard that and kind
of what they did and the you know, a couple of days past the
mint, I have a question. Sure, I have a question. It's
not for you. I'm not going to get an answer on the show.
But Jeremy and Kunal, what were you guys thinking, Yeah, well,
we'll hold on, hold on, hold on, we'll get to that.
We'll get to that because I know it's part of the update. Um,
and who's getting fired? Yeah, because a mistake like look, a mistake
like this cannot go. This isn't a slap on the wrist, you know,
error right, This isn't something small, this is this is something that
has the potential to completely and utterly destroy Yes, the company. Yes,
Now, I will say that two of the names that you said are absolutely
right. They appeared on our show and did there for the first interview Beckett
had in a couple of years. I highly recommend you check that episode out
if you haven't, probably a couple of months ago, but I will tell
you right now a lot of stuff that they said listening to that and then
seeing at the Mint and where they've gone since then, it's quite interesting and
still very very current event related. So if you haven't heard that episode,
definitely check it out. But you said, what, we're Canaan Jeremy thinking
that's two of the people. Now, I spoke to somebody very high up.
They may or may not basically run the National and they may or may
not also run a very very well known hobby website in the industry. But
had a long conversation with this man or a woman, and they happen to
tell me that there are three people at Beckett that right, now are making
those decisions. You had two of them, right, third one I'm not
going to name, but basically they all three have completely different visions on where
they think all this stuff could go, and they all put their ideas up.
They all tried to push for what they thought was right, but they
are being overruled at every single corner and are being shut down completely by one
person. And I'm sure if you connect the dots and play a little game
and do a little diagram, whatever you need to do, a yarn chart,
like a serial killer does whatever you need to do, you can cross
names, You cross names, figure out who it is it's making those ultimate
decisions. But they're being shot down at every single corner, and ultimately somebody
decided to take this completely on their own reins and say, hey, this
is exactly what we're doing. What you guys think does not matter. And
quite honestly, the people that are making those decisions are not the one out
of the three that has any idea about the actual collector they have. And
i they might have the best idea on the market. They may be brilliant
with technology, they may be brilliant advertising. They can may be brilliant and
all this other stuff, but when it comes down to the collector, the
actual person grading the cards, and the people on the ground floor of the
hobby, the people in that company that are ultimately shutting everyone else, like
Jeremy for example, down, they're silencing them. They're they're blocking their ideas
out and they don't understand the collectors in this industry. And that's something that
you and I spoke about that we were worried about, and you're seeing it
now. Yeah, now that brings us to the next thing. Yes,
So they put out an update shortly shortly after the mint yea that they were
gonna, you know, start doing some focus groups talking to people in the
hobby. You know, they put out a survey then you can go and
fill out. Um. You know, they're gonna be reaching out to two
people in you know, who's got got the experience in the hobby and um,
finding out what their views are. I'm still waiting for my phone call.
Um. But don't you think this is something that should have happened first?
Uh? Yeah, hell, what do you? Yes, Yes,
this is this is something that should have happened. This is you know,
if you're gonna if you're thinking about making a change like this, maybe we
should have focused grouped this with people from within the hobby first. You could
focus group, but within your own damn company. There's I know enough freaking
collectors there at the own company that they had actually listened to people. I
know for a fact, people in the company that were heavily against this,
because I spoke to them at the MINT. I know for a fact they
were heavily against this, but had no choice. They could have focused grouped
this, They could have spoken to everyone they needed to do. But that's
just it. The people making these decisions don't care until it's too late.
They think this is some industry where you can throw crap out there and if
it doesn't work, you can just immediately backtrack and fix it. You've seen
it a million times. But this is not a freaking website or a new
shopping cart. This is not the internet tech space. This is physical,
tangible collectibles. And like you said, that change would have cost at least
eight figures in the hobby at a minimum mini minimum. And that's a very
low estimate, you know, that's that's very forgiving. You know, at
that point, the amount of value they could have lost is extraordinary, So
for them to come out and do the crap they did, which I've got
their statement here, Like you said, to get there and do a hobby
wide survey, reaching out to specific people in the hobby. I know they're
gonna be reaching out to a lot of us. I'm sure we'll get those
colleges soon, if not from Cronal, from Jeremy or someone else. And
they're also going to be hosting, like you said, focus groups and things
like that. And you can go fill out the survey. Check out Beckett
on Facebook. They've got a link to it, you can or on Twitter
and you can click and take that survey, and I highly recommend you do
because I mean, I mean, I'm not using Becket anymore. I'll be
quite honest, unless I'm authenticating something because their authentication department is still phenomenal.
What Brooke and Steve built has been absolutely insane, although Brook's not in that
that side of it anymore. What those two are really responsible for building has
been phenomenal. But the grading side of stuff is a fricking mess. And
like we kind of talked about before, if I'm Beckett after all of this,
I move and focus all my tension on authentication and I come up with
whatever the hell kind of tech stuff they want to do and easier. Damn
ass is out of grating if you need to, because if you're not going
to listen to the people that can actually make changes. And I'm talking about
people I know there that are greaters, people that I know there that are
high ups in the company that I just spoke to in person that hated this
idea. You could have All you had to do is walk the office floor
and talk to five people and you could have focused grouped it in ten minutes.
But they thought they knew everything because they think they know this space and
they don't. And it's frustrating because a Beckett is a part of my childhood
growing up. I think it's part of it's part of all of our childhoods.
Yes, B I have a great relationship with doctor Jim, who founded
the company, and although he doesn't own it anymore, is still part of
his legacy. I would like to see that preserved and taken care of and
not run into the ground by people that have no fricking clue what they're doing.
But it's just it's frustrating to me, and it's getting to the point
where I just want to say, look, you got a lot of awesome
cards and a lot of awesome Becketts labs. If either keep things the same
or get rid of the grading because you gotta do something, you can't have
these reactionary I mean, this isn't the first time they've done this. Like
we just said, they keep throwing out new things, throwing it at the
wall, throwing it at collectors, and as soon as there's an uproar,
they pull it right back. And for good reason they pulled it back.
I'm glad they did because it was stupid. But now, no, no,
We'll hold on a second though. I understand why they wanted to make
the change where the Gemen became a tad. I get that. I understand
that. I'm supportive of that. Right, the issue became what then are
the qualifications? Yes, as far as subgrades go, there is a way
to do this. No, be able to make this change and still preserve
things where what was a gem mint at nine point five remains a gem mint,
yes, and still holds that value in collector's eyes. Correct, because
all we're really doing is changing a label. Right, You're saying, what
was a nine to five is now at ten. Well, and the slab,
the slab is going to get thinner. That is going to say,
the slab is getting changed just for everyone's knowledge. I'm I'm less focused on
that. That is not that is not the issue. The change in the
physical slab, that's not the problem. That was never the problem. Nope.
Now there is a way to do this, but you will also you
also have to change the subgrade structure as well. Right, yea, And
there there is a way. And I'm not going to give away all my
secrets. No, no, I would. I'm gonna to do their job.
Let's see, I'm gonna I'm gonna no, no, no, no,
I will gladly tell them how to do their job. So I'll tell
your out. You know, Conal, Jeremy. You want to know how
to do it, how to do it right, and how to fix it
and how to relaunch it and how to be successful with it. You got
their contact impact, you've got my number. You have my number? Yeah,
you know how you know where to find you know where the rainbow ends
exactly, all right, call me. I'll tell you exactly how to do
it, how to do it right, and how to do it without pissing
off of the hobby. Oh yeah, and guys, I know you are
listening because I know one of you as a weekly listener, but you definitely
give us a call. We can help you out with a lot of that.
But yeah, when you say pissing off the community, you have no
idea that first night of the Mint turned from a celebration of the Mint opening
to a straight up bunch of pissed off Beckett people, not employees, but
people going to be Beckett Ruth and then everyone else just laughing like crazy,
like it literally became a laughing stock. You had. Yeah, from what
I heard, you had half the people that had torches and pitchforks and the
other half they were just sitting back, drinking a beer and watching the show.
There's Beckett again. I mean I heard this, I heard this more
times than once. This exact phrase exactly what I'd expect from Beckett. And
is that's what's sad? Yeah, Yeah, you had you had your pitchforks
and torches guys, and you had your Michael Jack some bucket of popcorn guys.
Yep, And you know those would you there know that gift you know
or Jeff or whatever you want to call it. Um, you know what
I'm referencing. So you know again, you guys know where to find me.
Yeah, I can tell you how to fix it. Call me.
Yeah, absolutely, moving on. Yes, So in addition to to that
debacle, UM, you also were able to dig up some additional I don't
I don't want to. I don't want to use the word scandalous information because
it's it's a really scandalous some upcoming news. I will say, yeah,
yeah, so all this has nothing to do with back. But um,
I was able to talk and confirm over the last few days, which we
did drop on Hobby News Daily a little piece on it. Hasn't been talked
about a lot yet. I know it will be discussed on Hobby Hotline in
depth on Saturday with doctor Beckett and a few other people I believe Victor Roman
and Adam Palmer. But over the weekend, fanatics had a bunch of meetings,
or at least a bunch of dinners and conversations with a lot of people
at Panini. Those conversations, I can tell you right now have led to
already eight people or more. This is eight that we've confirmed, eight people
that left Panini and have now joined Fanatics in some sort of role. Now,
these announcements will start coming out very soon. I find it a little
odd that they haven't made the announcements yet. I have a couple of theories
as to why, but we'll get into that in just a moment. But
Panini, we've been talking about for a while now. There weren't a lot
of people there left anyways. There were there were people taking over that were
hired for one job that we're running four different departments. As soon as a
month ago. Now eight people, including at least three that are very high
up in Panini's in Panini's food chain, have left Panini to join Fanatics.
Now I'm not going to get the names at this moment because it has not
been made official, and it's not my business to put their personal business out
there till they want to, So I will let them make the announcements.
If you do enough digging, you can find it if you know their names.
But at least eight employees from Panini have now headed to Fanatics. So
the first thing I want to do is ask your opinion on what you think
about this, because I have a little theory I want to run by you
as well. Okay, so I I'm a little torn on which way I
kind of want to go because I don't think that this is a pre buyout
move. Yeah. Typically typically if they're gonna make it, you know,
if they're gonna if they're gonna try to buy out the company, Yeah,
they don't want to steal the employees before they buy out the company. Typically,
typically you just leave them there and you say, yes, we want
to buy the company. Here's here's how much, here's a check. And
it couldn't not be them, because what they did was they made him an
offer. They they didn't take it. Like at the Mint, they all
waited till they got back and then handed in their papers. When I see
something like this, it kind of makes me seem like, well, they're
trying to take the executives to then make a enough because we all know a
couple months ago that they were very close to purchasing Pemini. I know for
a fact, I have confirmed they made offers and it was very close to
being done and it ended up not being done. And that you know,
we haven't heard much of that story at all since then. So the only
we're on the table, so are they siphoning them to then offer them pennies
on the dollar. Well, I think the longer that they wait, they're
gonna wind up getting a pennies on the dollar offer anyway, because the closer
you get to the beginning of the Fanatics contracts with the NBA in the NFL,
you have a product that is going to generate less revenue at the higher
revenue percentage, which is what the current contracts are at compared to the one
that's the ones that Fanatics has. I think the only way, the only
way that I think that they're going to wind up being able to pull that
off if this is indeed a move to force a buy out, If if
it is top executives that they're you know, stealing way right now, it
is they what they might come to the table with now and say, well,
you have nobody there running the company. Let us come in and you
know, let us buy it out and we'll get it. But I don't
think they're I don't think they need the company. They don't need the company
the company. Know. What they need is the intellectual property, right,
That's what they really that's what they really want. They really don't care about
the company. But I but I will say that for those of you that
you know are expecting like a two year weight on redemptions, it's probably going
to be closer to five at the moment, or or they're gonna start creating
no sparkle packs for pretty much every product and saying you know, it's screw
it, We're done, and here you go sparkle packs. Um. I
honestly don't know now that I think the interesting. In addition to all the
Panini people moving forward, Fanatics also announced their plan to have NBA cards in
late twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, which is before they have the
license. But they but in twenty twenty one they did tops Finest Basketball right.
But are they expecting to get that intellectual property from Panini? Are they
expecting to be able to use stuff early or they expect like, what are
they expecting to do with this? A lot? Just the announcement of the
NBA was a little shocking to me because there was no need to announce anything
about it, but they did. And at the same time, they're taking
all the key executives. The amount of brain power that just left Panini.
When the names come out and you see the positions is astonishing, like they
literally chopped them in half. Almost. Well, so here's here's my thinking.
So, and this is gonna be a weird one just but just follow
me here. First, last year's Bowman Bowman University, Yeah, complete straight
up nil product, no school logos, just players and colors. This year's
Bowman University aside from the fact that they got rid of paper, like,
oh yeah, awesome, great job on that one. Tips Um they it
is now it's an still an NIL product, but it's also an NC double
A product. Yes, So my thinking is for those basketball products. Fanatics
already has deals with individual basketball players for autographs, including Lembayana. Yeah they
got that now, ya Um what I am thinking it's gonna be. I'm
and they're gonna be it's gonna be very similar to first year Bowman University.
Yeah, where they're just gonna airbrush off the uniforms. Well, I think
they will too. Look back at the football, even Bowman when they had
the license. If you look at Bowman football right before they lost a license
in twenty fifteen, I believe to Panini Bowman was already airbrush down right like
while the rookies and everything is they still air brush even when it was,
Well, the difference is going to be before the contract hits. The only
way the player can have a card is if they have an individual contract with
that player. Yes, which means we're not going to see Lebron. I
don't think we'd see him anyway, because he'd be retired and he and then
he reverts back to upper deck exclusive. But the only reason he's got cards
with Panini is because he's still playing. He's an active player. Um,
I think it's gonna be I think they're gonna go sign individual tracks with one
hundred plus players, sure, and they're gonna do a They're gonna do a
product out of it. Well, I think they are too. I honestly
think the main reason they wanted to do it was to capitalize on Victor Winbayonna
like, yeah, I mean it's the biggest prospect since Lebron, and let's
face it, Brownie Junior, he'll get some hype, but he's not gonna
have near the hype that Victor is going to have. And so I think
honestly they were like, yeah, there's no way we're missing that trial and
now, but here's it. But here's the other side of the Brownie Junior
thing. Do you think he'll have I don't think he'll have autograph products in
any whether it's Panini or Fanatics or anything. I think I think Daddy's gonna
wind up talking them into going upper Deck exclusive. From autograph standpoint, well,
I think eventually they do. But I mean Fanatics has already announced we'll
have some at least in the upper in the in the McDonald donalds and things
like that, So we might have, we might have some under some pre
NBA cards. Those maybe those maybe his only autographs. That was very posible
because he could easily follow in his father's footsteps at upper Deck, which a
lot of athletes have done lately Garland, a lot of other people had also
done it outside of just Lebron Jordan, things like that. But that greatly
influences the card market. I mean that, I mean hell, signing in
exclusive with Upper Deck is literally what made Prism popular. Thank you, Ben
Simmons. Like if Ben Simmons did not sign that exclusive, Prism would not
be what it was like, it wouldn't it would never have taken off because
people wouldn't have been looking for that one rookie to Chase because there were no
autos and people settled on the silver Prism and look what happened to the Prism
brand. Thank you again, Ben Simmons at Leasha did the only thing.
It's the only thing Nicia did something positive for the hobby, because you sure
didn't for anyone that bought your cards. But yeah, it very well could
be his only autographs could be in the lower end products, because I definitely
think with obviously your dad attached to it, I'm assuming he's gonna want to
have probably the same type of deal. I'm assuming Lebron obviously loves the deal
because he's not signing a billion things. Upper Deck is very good with their
exclusive athletes, and I really haven't seen a company ever use their athletes that
they have signed to an exclusive as well as upper Deck does. Yeah,
and so anyone that's offered that contract, honestly would be kind of crazy not
to take it unless Fanatics starts putting in some crazy, crazy incentives that make
it a little more appealing than upper Deck. But I just don't know.
Now, I will say there's a company out there that is going to do
that. Fanatics is the one because they've got deeper pockets than upper Deck does.
But yes, but yes, I still see I still see him going
upper deck. But anyway, but that's besides, that's besides. But that's
the reason I think to be a basketball. But they I don't know what.
I honestly don't know what their play is pilfering the Panini executives. Um,
what I do know is if that collective brain trust is gone. And
I use the word brain trust loosely because let's be honest, Panini hasn't exactly
in the you know, the shining example of what a card company should be
the last you know, five years or so. Um, if they're stealing
away that brain trust, like I don't, I don't know what they're gonna
I don't know if they I mean, what are they gonna do? Hire
They're gonna hire replacements for these people knowing that there's a definitive shelf life on
the product. That's that's the biggest thing. And that's why I'm so confused
on do they want the Panini brand or are they trying to get the people
from Panini so they can get what you said earlier, the intellectual property in
Panini, And maybe Panini pushes out back to stickers, NASCAR things like that,
and maybe moves on with some things and sells some intellectual property. I
mean, when Tops finished the first original football license, we'll guess what they
did with the inception plates and things like that. They handed them over to
Panini and they created this thing called Origins. Go check out the first year
of it, and go look at that same year of inception, the same
plates. Guys. So intellectual property gets transferred all the time. I mean
upper Deck has metal now, they never created metal in the past. I
mean it was Skybox in a completely different company well, and didn't Panini didn't
do Donerus right, so he all the time. So maybe this is a
power plate and not. Maybe since the offer to buy the company fell through,
they figured, screw it, We'll just take the people. We'll try
and grab what they want, which I'm assuming is prison, optic, national
treasures, flawless, and then say bye, you know, and they but
here's the thing. Do they really need optic? They don't need an optic.
Optic is to optic is tops chrome? They don't need it. They
don't need optic. But see, then you get into a much deeper conversation.
We'll have to have on another show where okay, well, now Prism
needs to change encard Autographs because you've got to have that chromium product one card
autographs, yep, which was optics main thing. You also, you know,
do you want that rated rookie logo that's massively valuable and that is in
Optic and so Dons. So but I don't I honestly don't think that that's
as I don't think that is as valuable a right, you know, at
least in the current market as Prism. No, no, I agree that
I'd rather have, you know, between those two brands, I think the
Prism brand is definitely more valuable than either Dons or Donos optic brands. But
I think if you gave Panini ten more years with Optic, I think there
would take over that. Maybe that may be true, Um, but what
I what I will say is Panini is in a tough position right right now
because you know, because of this, and it greatly If somebody a Panini
came to me tomorrow and said, hey, we'd like to take you for
this job that you know is the top whatever, the top person that you
know, they wind up leaving. Um, I'm gonna turn that down.
Same here, I'm gonna turn it down because there there is a there is
a definitive shelf life on this. It's like, hey, we're gonna you're
gonna go roll with this for two to three years and then now now you
could wind up orchestrating, as you know, a buy out to Fanatics and
you could wind up moving over to Fanatics and you know, a similar type
role. But whatever. But there's no guarantee. I was about to say,
there's no guarantee on it. There's no guarantee on that. No,
So Panini is a Panini isn't a world hurt? Yes, No, this
is a massive blow to Panini. Now, I will say, I'm going
to reach out to a lot of Panini contacts I have. Are the few
that are still there as a few of mine did, are some of the
eight now that have left. But I'm interested to see what happens going forward,
because like you said, you I mean, there was already so much
change in the last six months. There was already so many new people brought
in. Some people didn't even last a year. Some of these people that
left just came into these positions a year ago and they're already moving like this
is a massive, massive exodus at Panini, and I'm gonna be really interested
to see what happens from now until National time. Maybe, like as we
said at the beginning of the show, is maybe this leading up to something
at the National Who knows, But one thing's for sure, Pannini might not
have happened at the Mint. Is I think Beckett was dealt the biggest blow
at the Mint. But post all right, as soon as everybody got back
to work that Tuesday or Wednesday this week, Yeah, Panini, I got
a stack of audio, so I'm out of here. Letters, and I
do and I will say, I understand why those people waited. So do
I completely understand why if you don't do that at the show? No,
no, no, absolutely not, especially when you're not especially when the show
is not in your hometown. Right, because they could say, all right,
great, have fun getting home. You're yeah, exactly, paid for
your flight here, you're going you know, yeah exactly, Yeah, you
don't. You don't do that. Plus you've already committed to, you know,
doing a job for a company at this show. You don't like,
Look, these people are not you know gen Z people. Exactly, Yeah,
They're not the ones that will just you know, I, hey,
screw this, I'm out of here. I don't like this, you know,
and just walk away. That's not you know what it is. You
actually have a little bit of respect, correct And I'm willing to bet they
put in a notice. Two oh they I know for a fact that they
did. No, I'm not I'm not doubting that at all. I'm I'm
just you know, because we have a lot of people that are gen Z
that do listen to the show, and I just want to I just want
to point that out, non hobby related, don't ever walk away from a
job. If you're going to leave the job, give a proper notice to
allow your employer to find a replacement for you. Yep, don't just walk
away. No, that's either. Okay. So that that's my non hobby
you know, gen Z advice right here. So all right, so we
are actually, you know, before we started recording, we actually joked around
about how we could literally talk about this for a week and find that's that's
exactly like we were. We were anticipating like a thirty minute episode tonight.
Yeah, sorry about just because it is it is Friday night. It's late.
I got a soccer game in the morning, we have, you know,
I got I'm refereeing in the afternoon. Yeah, you gotta flight tomorrow.
So before we wrap things up, Yes, one quickie hit that we
want to do, and it revolves around the little teaser that we throughout at
beating of the show. So drew details on this one. All right,
So we did mention the Beckett interview that we had from a couple of months
ago. But if you check out a couple of weeks ago when we had
John Scanlon on the show from Denver Card Shows, where we talked all about
the new trimming scandal, when everybody was when the quote unquote trap house of
the Hobby, when that beautiful beautiful slogan was coined forever by John. On
the show, we talked a lot. He talked a lot about his PSA
experience and about how he was blown off when he tried to speak with them,
and about how he was really upset at how he was treated. And
you went into some pretty good detail on that and I highly recommend you check
out that episode. Well, I got a phone call from John this morning
Friday morning, are as we're recording Friday night, the seventh, I got
a phone call from him and I was like, oh, this is interesting,
and I picked up, so what's up and he was like, Hey,
I just wanted to let you know that PSA reached out to me,
and I was like about what. I was confused. I honestly forgot that
we had talked so much about that, And he was like, well,
they actually called and said you just did an interview on a podcast recently about
PSA and stuff, right, And he's like, well, yeah, it
was more about the trimming scandal and everything and about how y'all treated me like
shit, but yes I did, yeah, and PSA wasn't the focus.
It was more about the you know, the guy that just got arrested because
scammed like eight hundred thousand dollars worth of car, you know, fake car.
Yeah, the interviews all about that. PSA was just a side thing
where he was telling his story about how he tried to notify people. Well,
PSA reached out to him, spoke to him about for about twenty minutes,
and apologized greatly for everything that happened, assured him that you know,
obviously the regime has changed significantly since then. None of those people that were
there really there anymore if they are there not in any of those same positions,
but spoke to him, talked to him, got his feedback on things
that they could do better, talked about how they would handle social media dms
and people bringing this stuff to their attention in the future, and really had
a small little focus group conversation kind of like what back it's doing if you
will with them and said how much they appreciated him going on the show,
how much they loved the interview, and how much they wanted to help in
the future. And I thought that was awesome. I mean, we I
already knew that when people at PSA listen to the show. Look, I
talked to him. A lot of people at PSA listen to the show.
Yes, yes, very and so I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that,
and I love to see stuff like that. And like I said,
again, guys, if you didn't listen to that interview, it's one of
my favorites of the year so far, definitely a leading contender for one of
my favorites of the year so far. I mean, look, no disrespect
to John, but it's only April. Yeah, I know, no,
I agree. I agree, but but John's got the heads up on the
first quarter. And you know, I just thought it was awesome that PSA
actually reached out to him found his information because I didn't give it to him.
UM got his number, he didn't give it to him, and was
able. It's not hard look at that he runs it. You know,
he's a show promoter. I'm just saying they couldn't hit him up on Instagram
and send him some bullshit message or send him some bs email. But the
fact they took the time out to actually call him and have a discussion with
him about it and actually talk to him about you know, what did you
do in this process? How can we improve this and you know, sharing
him of you know, new safeguards in place and things like that. I
thought it was pretty awesome. So yeah, I'm happy. I was pleasantly
surprised when you sent me that this afternoon, and you know, happy with
the way they did it. Now, I do want to, you know,
point out that for those of you remember the story behind this and the
interview and all that kind of stuff, um PSA wasn't really a fault other
than just blowing him off. Right for you know, DMS things like that.
That was the only thing that they get it wrong. Yeah, they're
not gonna you know, somebody was down there counterfeiting their slabs. Yeah.
Um, it's very difficult, you know, to say that PSA was responsible
for that, because they're not. No, you know, I just want
to put it. I just want to so, I just want to,
you know, for those people that are you know that ever thought that you
know, there was an impression that that we gave me like oh no this
said, oh it is a PSA scandal that no, no, no,
no, no, no no no no, no, no no. The
scandal itself had nothing to do with PSA other than the fact that the guys
that were counterfeiting the slabs counterfeited there's instead of somebody else's. And when they
were provided the information, they didn't take it. They should have outside exactly
nothing to do with it, no, exactly. And we we did point
out during the ship during that interview that it was the old regime, yes
at PSA, not the current you know, not the current regimes run the
company now. Um, you know, but I just don't, like I
said, I just want to put that out there because it's you know,
It was not a you know when we discussed, was not a slam on
PSA. No, no, you know, but there there might be some
people out there that you know, hear us giving the update and old PSA
reached out and apologize. Nor Look, the only thing they had to apologize
for was something that somebody did years ago, and that all they did was
just brush they guy, you know, brush off. That was it.
But again, we're talking about people that are probably aren't with the company ay
and probably haven't been for several years. So you know, the fact that
they reached out now even though it's you know, it's all new people that
are running a show over there. Um, you know that apologize that,
hey, you know, how can we do things better and spend twenty minutes
talking to John about it. Um. I think it says a lot as
a company, and that's really why I wanted to bring it up, because
I think it does show how much the uh, the new regime does pay
attention to everything's going on, and I was very happy about that. I
do have to say, guys, you're at the mint next time, maybe
don't do on site grating and if you do, uh, maybe uh stack
yourself a little bit better because I really don't want to have to handle y'all's
line on Saturday, because you can't, even though we took care of it
in about an hour. But that's a completely different story for probably off the
air. But yeah, that's a private that's a private conversation. Whoever is
responsible for that slide into the jerwisdems and yeah, you know you guys,
we'll we'll discuss that. I'll talk to the right people on that later.
But yeah, I loved I loved hearing that. And like I said,
that's why we do these interviews. It's not just it's to get the attention
to people sometimes, you know, it's we want to tell a story.
We wanted John's story to be out there. But at the same time,
you've got a major company in the industry that's listening to that interview and just
here's their name being brought up. And like you said, they were not
the focal point of this at all, but they heard something and said,
wait a minute, we can do better at this. Maybe we should reach
out to this guy. And they did and they told him. They said,
we absolutely loved the interview. We thought it was excellent, they said,
but we wanted to make sure that we talk to you, and so
I think that's the type of that's what I want to see. Since we
were talking about Becketting everything before and their disconnect from the customer and the actual
hobbyist, here's a major example of the difference. Yep, this company understands
the hobbyist and the collector and wants to reach out to them to make sure
that everything's cool and see what they can do better, as opposed to thinking
they know everything and thinking they can just ride and depend on their name and
they can make any change they want. And people are just kind of blindly
following because that's the that's the observation from the other quote unquote big whatever number
you want to call them, probably fourth now, but you know, and
hey, look at us, look at us affecting change in the industry.
I know, who would it die? It's our good it's our good.
Date of the year it is, and it's only April and we're knocked and
we're tapped out. I know that's what you guys are all screwed until January.
Yeah, yeah, we're only look, we're only given you know,
we're only given one of these a year, and we used it up early,
so we are we are out of Fox to give. I'm sorry it
resets resets January first, so good luck with that. Yeah, no Fox
and no Fox given until twenty twenty four. And on that note, mister
Rappaport, I think it's probably a good time to end this week's show.
What do you think I would agree? I gotta get over early to play
soccer. I'm right there, or whatever words would ever come out of my
valve, I didn't either tell you the truth, but hey, I like
it. But before we go, guys would like to, of course,
thank our awesome sponsors. We gotta show your slabs, Slab Strong, Denver
card shows of course, Treasure Hunter, Sports Cards, Card Ladder, and
our brand new sponsor, stand Up Displays. Thank you guys so much for
us sponsoring the show. Really looking forward to having stand up displays on board.
You guys will be able to check out some of their awesome stuff and
some of our awesome displays that we actually will probably grab some and put some
up for sale if you guys would like some as well. For letter it,
let me get that potograph of a lot of that stuff here in the
near future. I think you know what I think we may we may,
I think we may offer up some autograph versions of those two Yes, yes,
definite. Well yeah, well we'll sign you know, I say,
well, we'll have the regular versions up and then you know, if you
guys want autograph versions of that, we are glad to do that. Yeah,
we're gonna do some really fun stuff with that. And I will say
there's a couple of things that works in the pipeline that we're very excited about
as we make the road now from April until the end of July beginning of
August for the nationals, and really cool stuff coming up that you guys are
not gonna want to miss. But very glad to welcome stand up displays on
board to all of our awesome sponsors. Once again, thank you guys so
much. Of course, new episode of letter Rip will be out next week.
We have an episode Live from the Mint. If you didn't get a
chance to check it out with Jeff Hoffer from Panini, he was able to
join me. Make sure to check that episode out if you haven't. As
a giveaway, we'll be put up this week, but you must watch the
episode otherwise you won't know how to get in the giveaway, so make sure
to check that out as well. Another new episode will come back next week
when I'm back from floor with Revolution Soccer, which Scott has some great luck
with. We'll see how Oh yeah, hopefully mine's as good as his was,
but you hope, so I hope, so, yes, that episode
will be up. And then also, of course Hobby Hotline every single Saturday
and then the first Tuesday of every month is instead of every Tuesday, it's
gonna be the first Tuesday of every month and then every Saturday as usual.
But yeah, so a lot of awesome stuff coming up, guys, But
Scott always a pleasure to do the show man. I'm glad to be back.
Yeah, enjoy Florida. We'll talk when you get back. Absolutely,
we'll tell then, guys, you know the deal. Keep ripping those packs,
pulling those hits. We'll talk to you then. Pace