Well, hello and welcome to Hobby Hotline, episode three hundred and six.
Honored to be part of part of this one to my depending on what side
you're sitting on next to me is Horatio and in square, I think we
got doctor James Beckett. How are you guys doing today? Great? Doing
good, doing, good day. We got some people already in the chat
room, Mad City, good morning, good morning, and Chris, we're
your favorite peeps, get new friends. We're not that exciting, but we
appreciate the compliment. Guys, it seems like a kind of a quiet,
interesting time in the hobby. But there's a couple of pieces of I think
news one specifically with PSA that we'll get to. But Ruben says, great
to see doctor Beckett. Oh and Danny too, Thank you, Ruben.
The card is in the mail. The I want to start out with actually
the top Shot, because that's got a little bit of depth to it.
I owned a top shot for the fun of it that I bought a couple
more for the fun of it. I never did it thinking I would open
a pack and get a huge card just like real packs. But I think
I finished with five or six top shots after I sold them, but now
they've been accused or found guilty and have a settlement to reimburse Top Shot owners,
saying the top Shot platform was a security platform and uh, not proper
to do what they were doing. The big settlement is four cents per moment,
so you know, you'd have to own a lot of moments to get
any money back out of this. I think I've got about a quarter coming
back that I'll have to pay taxes on. We'll say, Horatio, I
know you are a big Top Shot fan. What do you think of this?
You know, they are a couple of things that went in with part.
Part of the settlement says that from going forward that plaintiffs can't call NFT's
Top Shot moments securities anymore. So that's part of the settlement. So what's
funny is kind of like we're settling that these were unsecured, you know,
securities, unregistered securities, but moving forward, we're not gonna call them securities
anymore. We can't call them securities anymore. The plaintiffs camp and it's four
million dollars for me, it's a it's a drop in the bucket. For
Dapper Labs. It's kind of gets them to move away from some of the
things that they did wrong in the past. They froze the accounts of account
holders, you know, for a long time. There's a long period of
time there where we couldn't get any money out. It was like a two
three you know, a month period where you couldn't get anything out. So
I think that's to me, that's the most important thing. I think four
cents a moment is kind of kind of a joke, So it's more of
like a slap on the risk kind of deal. It's more of a like
a negative publicity for for Top Shot. I like, I still am a
fan of top Shot, even though having bought a moment in quite some time
there. I think that digital collectibles have a future. That's just me.
Uh it's more I get it. You could just kind of clip a little
bit of a YouTube, you know, video, and it's yours. But
we could say that about so many other things. You know, I could
say, you know, I could get a copy of the Mona Lisa right
and hang it up in my living room. It doesn't mean I own the
Mona Lisa. And we can go deeper and deeper into these kind of you
know, rat holes, But Dapper Labs is the license holder for these moments.
You know, NBA has given them the license, and there's a certain
gravitas to and they're going to have pull as long as they have that license,
they're going to have that pull for collectors. About here, what do
you think of a top shot? I'm sure you bought thousands and thousands of
moments. I'm famous for saying that I'm more worried about FOE than fo m
O. I don't want embarrassed, and I'm going to miss out. I
have a good friend that's very savvy, and he took a pretty strong position
in top shot. But what he did is he immediately zero costed what he
had. In other words, when the stuff went up double, he sold
half of it. So now what he has left is he has zero kind
of zero in it, even though he really doesn't have zero in it.
But it's like that. But so Horatio, you're saying you get to keep
your stuff. It's just they're getting a slap on the wrist. This is
a penalty where they have wronged the holders of these not securities, and so
to not call them securities anymore, this is their penalty. And then and
you keep your stuff. But it's still it wasn't a difficult platform. I
mean, it wasn't it. The securities aspect is they were like holding your
money and you couldn't get your money out very easily. Isn't that And how
has that changed? Was it just the words they're not allowed to use.
Yeah, So as far as like this settlement, right, and there might
be some other lawsuits that other people kind of get together and kind of go
against Top Shot or Dapper Labs, but yeah, this settlement basically says moving
forward, you know you whoever accepts the settlement, we can't then go and
claim as another part of the settlement that those are securities or unregistered securities.
So that kind of blocks you out from other lawsuits. Right. But like
you mentioned before, I think that the biggest deal was, and they're also
settling that for a long time users couldn't get their money out of the platform.
And to me, that was the biggest mistake that they made, or
the big is kind of problem that they had. It just didn't seem right
and you couldn't you coundt understand why. So a lot of times people were
selling their moments for two three, four thousand dollars and it was stuck in
this digital wallet, you know, this on their blockchain, you know,
they used the Flow blockchain, and then you couldn't you couldn't get it out.
So it didn't really matter if you were if you were selling, because
you could you didn't have access to your money. Eventually that did get resolved,
but it took a while. Yeah, nobody's accusing them of stealing the
money. It's just it was like a security but not really. And in
the stock market, when you settle up, you get your money packed pretty
pretty quick. And so the fact that they weren't was a was it I
guess it's only a PR problem. Yeah, it is a PR illegal,
but it wasn't illegal in terms of like holding the money holding the money.
Yeah, I mean I think that they said that a couple of people also
couldn't get their money out because depending on the state you were in. Here's
a problem. It was crypto. Basically, what you were doing is you
were deal with cryptocurrency flow, and so what they were saying was, well,
your status kind of doesn't have a really good regulations or laws regarding cryptocurrency
and how we can transfer this stuff between you know, a digital wallet,
like the whole of digital crypto or a regular bank account. So they're kind
of their thing was that they're working on those regulations. They're working on not
violating any laws involving cryptocurrency. And that's what allowed them to kind of hold
onto that money, or that was their reason for holding onto the money is
they didn't want to run a file any any laws in any particular state.
So for example, me in New York State, I didn't have access that
money for months, and even when you did, you have to pay like
a big penalty. You know, you have to pay like a forty dollars
fee to get your money out of the out of the account. It was
it was a bit of a Yeah, it's a bit of a wild West
involving crypto, you know, digital collectibles. And now the funny thing is
me and Dannie were talking, you know, we're getting four cents back a
moment, which is like you said, it's just negative publicity, but you're
not getting it back. You're you're getting it's it's found money. You're keeping
your moments. I'm not surrendering your moments. You're not running your moment place
ratio for it's not Dapper Lab's fault that they were premature, that the state
regulations were not in place. They had a pretty good idea, but in
the execution they got blocked by certain states being behind and they maybe thought things
were going to happen very quickly. But so you're kind of defending them,
I think, Uh, I mean that, I'm just looking at it from
their perspective. You know, I could say, because listen, I bought
a couple of NFTs, and these were NFTs, there was no roadblock like
that. Uh, you know, if you're buying an NFT from wherever,
you know, from from open Sea, let's say. And I don't know
if that rings about anybody. I don't know if I'm losing listeners. But
if you buy an NFT from open Sea, which is one of the bigger
NFT marketplaces out there, and you have a digital wallet, that stuff comes
in and out, you know, within seconds, and so if you're top
shot and you're using a blockchain flow blockchain, it wasn't compatible with too many
other digital wallets. That's the other thing. So, yes, they were
early, but they should have been able to kind of had the mechanisms or
the structures to kind of you know, get this stuff in and out quickly.
They did have all the structures for getting stuff in, they didn't have
structures for getting it out, including your money. So if you did want
to cash out, that was the problem. So they made it easy to
get in, difficult to get out, and that there's a lot of grumbling
about that. Well, it's also one of those things where if you don't
have a marketplace of buyers, it's going to be self destructing anyway. So
people have to have confidence in the platform, and I think that's one of
the bigger things that happens with this settlement. Well, second, secondary market,
yes, good point, secondary market buyers, yep. They made it
easy to come in. A lot of hub and hey, this is going
to be great. But the secondary market is what's critical in any collectible field.
Otherwise it's just a trinket. If it's only one person buys it.
There has to be some exchange afterwards and a market made and if that has
a lot of friction, and this was extreme friction. You had to wait
a long time. I mean it's like grading. You're sending your cards in
for grading, and if you got to wait a year to get them back,
if it was supposed to be thirty days. Then people will be frustrated.
I want to get caught up. I asked in the chat room if
anybody had actually bought an NFT or excuse me about a top shot specifically and
pretty much low usage. I think we were for seven or for eight on
responses, so that top shots and dapper labs it might might have some work
to do. There's one comment real quick that I think, and this is
I may cull for not starting off with this. Orlando Cepeda Uh rest in
peace. He did pass away yesterday, and the great Giant, the first
designated hitter in Red Sox history. UH had a lot of leg problems,
but UH made the Hall of Fame to the Veterans Committee and for a period
of time was as good of a power hitter as I probably was in the
National League. Either of you have thoughts on a suppeta. I'm going to
do a tribute to him. I think maybe later today. You know,
I think it's it's really tricky when I figure out when I on my podcast,
if I do a tribute, but then if I don't do a tribute,
does that mean I didn't like the guy who he's not hobby worthy.
I mean Orlando Cepeda, you know, comes in through the Veterans Committee.
But as a guy who sought him, saw him play, he was a
feared, feared hitter, and so so I'm gonna I'm going to gather my
thoughts and do something about that. He's very worthy Hall of Famer, no
question about that, but he's probably in that middle rank. Was I mean
a hard time getting at this. He's not he's not the not the absolute
best, and he's not the worst. He's a legit Hall of Famer,
but he's he's in the middle. Yeah, as always said, superstar.
As a superstar, I always say, not everybody can be baby bird.
That doesn't make you not not a Hall of Famer. But they they made
him wait for non baseball reason. Yes, and in today's world it might
be silly even Horatio. Uh. Did you know much about Sappada before the
tributes? I mean he was a West Coast guy, so a lot of
East Coast people, I think were not as familiar with him. What do
you what do you know about Seppaedo? And have you seen any of the
tributes? Yeah, I mean my introduction to baseball was you know, the
obvious greats like uh, you know, Willie May's baby, Hank Karen,
and then my dad was teaching me about the game. And then the next
was all the Latino greats, you know, the early Latino greats. So
uh Sapaedo was one of them, Marshall, Tony Perez. Uh he grew
up with watching the Big Red Machine with Dave Concepcion and all those guys.
So uh, Subpada was always a name that you know, I admired,
uh, you know, along with other other Latino American you know, Latino
players that were out there, so uh, big name, uh not.
I don't collect Supaida, but I've always admired his game. I know there's
a big power hitter. And my dad always just said that, you know,
these were these were guys that could play in today's game and destroy the
picture that you know that he was talking about the modern day pictures. So
that's my That's as much as I know about Cepada. You know, I
know that him and Clemente were close. I know Clemente was a big influence
on him, and and and then and in return, so was he and
uh so Clementa being one of my heroes Uh, I got to know a
little bit more about you know, I wrote about Cippada quite a bit.
Cibpada was the second Puerto Rican Hall of Famer and if you look at the
gap between Clemente and Cupaida, there was there was a couple of decades in
there. So, uh, you know, good, good to see that
changing in the more recently, Doctor Beckett, you are getting lots of free
marketing here says your podcast is a must listen. You can't get that access
information analysis anywhere else, well except for here from Rookie. Let me respond,
It's say, Mookie Chilson's comments to me are a must read. He's
always got interesting things commenting or or sending me stuff. So I enjoy his
response to the things that I'm doing. So it's nice to know when somebody
appreciates what you're doing. So thank you, Mookie. And vintage il ballcard
says, I've been enjoying Doctor Beckett's father in some videos. I think a
lot of fun, a lot of fun. I mean, that's it's a
tradition now for four or five years that I picked three or four hobby fathers
and sons, and it's it's it's unpredictable, Danny. You know when you
get well, start with the Newman's where I did a three for with them.
So that's been a lot of fun. But that's that's during the Father's
Day weeks. Very cool. A couple more hellos or and a shout out
to his channel as well. Uh he did a great Negro league said video,
So a shout out there somebody, uh Azoka Tom he has a top
shot. So just you know, Horatio, I wanted to throw that out
there so you weren't alone. And I told you, I think I have
one left or two left, so I don't want to I don't wanna lie
about that, Horatio. You can't trade with him. You could talk about
your experience, but there you have to be intermediated by the platform, and
so the camaraderie of a private sale or a trade or something. I think
these digital collectibles are difficult. The blockchain, with the chain of custody,
it's it's it's it's not like other collectibles, no doubt. I mean,
I think the speed bumps to the future are plenty, but I think there
is a future there. Sepeda was the terror in sixty seven. Yes,
Orlando Seppetta used a heavy bat I have game used that is close to thirty
six ounces. Love watching him hit. You know, it's funny. The
approach to hitting has changed a lot on the size of the bat you use.
It used to be, you know, the bigger, the bath,
the farther, one type of thing, and now it seems to be changing
U exit velocity. Yeah, and the and the barrels in the woods are
getting so hard there that they're breaking. It's also part of it. Cource
equels mass times acceleration, so you get more acceleration with less mass or greater
mass and less acceleration, you still get a lot of force. Speida hit
a heavy ball, heavy bat. He smashed. It makes sense. He
was the first dah for somebody. I mean he he by then his h
his legs were worse more than gone Clint cheap shots. Is bat speed with
without a doubt, you know, Hank Aaron was known for his wrist now
word saying, hitter's got to turn on faster. Pitching absolutely, probably,
Paul Schemes was not was not pitching in sixty seven. And is there a
cupade on the wall behind you, doctor Beckett? That's not the panel that
has the seas. But there is a there is a cupada, there is
all right. One of the things that I think is one of the biggest
stories in quite some time. And I don't know if I'm blowing this out
of the water, but uh, he has a greater notes. I think
this is an interesting turn, and grating grades were something I always liked,
and this is taking it to the next level of actually being told you know
what to look for, doctor Beckett. You know, subgrades, greater notes,
your thoughts on the extra details. Yeah, newsflash, BGS had subgrades
twenty five years ago. But this is an excellent move on the part of
PSA. I mean, they've got up charges, they've got market leadership,
they've got a lot of things people can talk about and be griping about.
This is something I think everybody is pleased, and I hope they do it
for all the cards. But it's an additional expense, and it also suggests
an additional scrutiny of the cards and taking longer with the cards to make the
notes. So this is positive. I think anything that provides an educated buyer
to know what they're buying is good for long term health of the hobby.
So hats off to PSA. I would say, I wish they'd done it
sooner, but they respond to the market, and they responded very well to
the market. So this is market leadership to hear their customers. I think
they've done the right thing. And just to clarify, greater notes for every
card graded, well right now they're introducing No, no, they're not doing
that, but that's where it could go exactly. People have hopes, but
you know, when you're paying big bucks to get something graded, you'd like
to have more than just a number, you know, without a doubt.
And I think especially with the dollar values for some of the cards today,
people get very worked up and certain I think you get reputations as a grading
company, and this hopefully, you know, at least gives some explanation.
Now, the next step is if you get feedback, you know, where's
it coming from. Well, it's coming from the actual grater and from the
article I read, they've been instructed not to write a paragraph, but just
a quick note, you know, dimple top, left corner, stuff like
that, or ratio. What do you think about this? Yeah, Like,
like doctor Becker said's a good thing. You know, a lot of
other companies have followed to not BGS is one of them. But even like
newer companies like Rare addition, I don't know if anybody remembers that grading company.
You know, they had these very solid slabs and you know, they
had a bar code and you could kind of scan it and then it would
tell you exactly why the card got the grade that it got. So like
that was one of the selling points for new grading companies was we're gonna tell
you why you got the grade you got. So it's welcome that PSA has
kind of joined that joined that boat, right they said, you know,
we're gonna do that as well. It is interesting that you can't share like
even though you get it, like you get the notes, like you can't
share that on any platform. You can't share on eBay because that's considered proprietary
information. So that's part of their terms and services. And I'm curious how
long that will last. I think eventually that will also kind of be uh,
you know, challenge and eventually, you know, I'm thinking about maybe
in about a year, we will be able to have the public information.
So I'm wondering why I guess they're holding off on that now. Maybe they're
just kind of trying to see, you know, how the program kind of
unfolds and how much information they really can give. But I think it's great.
I think it's great. I think everybody wants to know, Like how
many times have you heard, not me personally, but I've heard a bunch
of people say, I don't see anything wrong with this card. This looks
minimum nine, should be a ten business seven. And so I think that
this gives clarity and this kind of takes away a lot of confusion from the
hobby. Well, it also it reduces their top line and it reduces their
bottom line. It reduces the top line because when you get back your card
and it's a nine, now you know it's not a ten. They saw
it. They've got so you're not going to send it back in and you've
gone to additional time and effort to add cost to the grading of that card.
But they've added a mistique to it ratio, I mean, by making
it only avail to the submitter, then that just then the submitter's got an
edge on somebody else. I know, you know it's my card. I
have the inside scoop, and nobody else knows that this is not a card
that could be resubmitted for a higher grade because they've already now identified that has
that dimple in the upper left corner, and we won't get into what they
could do to solve that dimple, so we'll leave that from what's going to
happen is that somebody is going to cross it over. They're going to get
a tin, and they're going to thank Kurt's card care for eliminating the dimple.
Well, you know, I mean, it's part of the reason.
You wonder if they're holding back on the public notes, if that's the reason
for now. But my understanding is this is all in their software. They
can flip a switch and make these public. So I think you guys are
right. It's only a matter of time till you put in you know,
the barcode, and you'll get a NACHA the stats on the card, but
you'll get the greater notes with it as well, and that'll be public.
Greater notes should be on the PSA website. I think we agree we're heading
there. Orlando says, all greaters do grading notes, but they never shared
the information from the article I read in PSA. They only really entered it
into the main system within the last couple of years that they might have been
done in a different manner, but as far as formalizing it digitally, which
is the key today, that was when they updated their software in the last
couple of years. I hope that greater Notes speak to the positive qualities of
the card, not just the flaws. Well, I think, and maybe
I'm wrong. I thought it was going to speak to anything that affected the
grading of the card, not being at ten point of the question is the
way some people look at grading, but not the way the companies look at
the grading. When you're auditioning for graders, you're not to hire a potential
grad You're not seeing if they can notice the positive qualities of the card that
you're seeing, if they can notice the flaws. So the whole process of
grading is what is less than perfect, And since it's completely different orientation,
so perfect edges you know, they you know, like I say, the
report card evaluates each of those the But to that question, it possible,
it's it's probably going to be the case that the Greater Notes will not deal
with all of the four subgrade type categories. So they might not say anything
about centering if it's perfect, but if it's off center. They may say
that if there's a problem with the edges, there's not, they won't.
That won't be in the grater's notes. So that would be my guess.
I always appreciated the subgrades on the back of cards. Yeah there's breaking is
do what year that actually started? Doctor Buckett? Ninety nine, so twenty
five years later it would be at the beginning. Yeah, I wasn't sure
if you had it right from the beginning or not. We were we were
slow getting started. We could have started a year earlier, except one of
the key things that was the hold up was developing and refining the process of
what the subgrades would translate into a final grade, because it's not an average,
as people have eventually noticed. Obviously, if you get four nine fives,
you're gonna have a nine to five. But if you have three nine
fives and an eight point five, that might be a nine. But it
seems like it ought to be a nine point twenty five or something, but
it's not. Is there a mathematical algorithm or is it it's not mathematical.
It's not mathematical, is it what the rumor has always been, you can't
be a half grade above the lowest grade. That's what I was almost that's
aol. That is true most of the time. I'm not sure it's true
all the time. Again, the dilemma we had is that some of these
these rules don't apply equally in the high end, you know, toward the
mint, as a poor, as toward the poor. If something's an absolute
perfect card, except for a bullet hole in the lower left corner, that's
a it's a ten ten ten one. And does that make it a one
point five Danny, I mean, that's an I appeal card if you just
avoid it, just don't look at the bullet hole. It's a baby hole,
maybe it's a pinhole, you know. So so again, as soon
as you make hard and fast rules, there can be exceptions. But that
that's the that's that's a basic principle. There's a couple of questions here,
and I just want to clean clear some stuff up. What was the reason
for discontinuing the subgrades? Were they discontinued? Not that I'm aware as option
you could, you have to you do have to choose to pay for any
and again this was after me. They allowed uh sort of a discount.
You know, if you don't want the subgrades. We won't charge you as
much that that was not under my regime because I love the subgrades. I
think they're part of the part of the service. Greater notes should say nice
things too, like quote, wow, this was a stunner. Also,
freight corner is not with stand, so that's why you got a five.
You know, Like that's the bullet hole the bullet hole theory. You know,
everything's great, Just don't look at the bullet bullet hole a mookie pinhole
card a tend withth hole. I'm gonna start using that for having no hair
in the back. Yeah, just don't look at it and focus on everything
else. That's Maybe that's not better, I appeal Danny. It applies to
hair too. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I've got other comments.
I'll leave off choice of cap exactly. You know, and having a
big head doesn't help Horatio. You have too much hair to be on this
episode, I realized. But on the Greater Notes, doctor Becky, can
you elaborate a little bit more on the extra time it takes? Does it
take extra time or would this be internal information only? I'd like to say
it takes four times as long because you're grading the card in four different ways.
It doesn't take four times as long, but it takes longer. I
think that's part of the marketing problem that BGS has, is that they're probably
the slowest and most thorough graders. And it's so again it needs to be
positioned, which it was originally is kind of a premium service. It's kind
of a premium service. So yeah, it takes longer, but it means
attention to detail time was spent on each of those four aspects. Horatio,
if you had to pay for the greater notes on a value submission, would
you pay for the upgrade? Yeah? Absolutely. I think it gives me
any any any information I can have you know, about my card. And
I'm not thinking as a reseller or anything like. I'm just thinking about,
you know, I want to know why I got what I got, So
I think that would help. I think you know that that that PSA.
It's almost like they have a rutbric out there, right. They have their
guidelines for grading. What what is a ten? What is nine? So
I always thought of it as a rubric, and you know, very simply
just go through, does this card meet the standards of a ten? If
it doesn't doesn't meet the standars of a nine and check check check. That'd
be cool, you know, that'd be an interesting thing. Like the centering
isn't quite the you know, the acceptable amount for a ten. There's no
staining, there's no you know, there's no paper loss whatever, so you
know, you move up to ps A five. So I always thought that,
uh, that that guideline, those those that PSA scale, it's very
easy for people to follow if they're able to get that as part of their
feedback, you know that way, like the collector and the greater speaking the
same language. I wanted to put this comment up. There can PSA grading
get stricter than it is now. And doctor Becky, you touched on this,
but does this effect the strictness of the grating. Well, no,
it just means that it doesn't matter for tens. And they don't have nine
point five. So if they send back a nine, they're gonna be able
to tell the person of a good card. They're gonna be tell them here's
why it didn't get a ten. And so that's not necessarily stricter. It
just means they can't if they give it a nine with no explanation as to
why it's a nine or something that seems flimsy. I don't know, I
mean, if it's but well here's an example. Okay, so they'd got
a nine, but there was some wax residue on the front of the card.
Okay, well then I'm gonna crack it out and I'm gonna wipe off
with my finger, you know, the tiny bit of wax residue that's on
the front of the card, and then resubmit. And again that's a foreign
substance, but it was something that was not intended to be on the card,
that's on the card from the factory because of the gum or wax,
well, because of the wax of the of the rapper. If it's a
vintage card, what would PSA take that as a as a regrade. I'm
wondering, like you know, I'm saying, like if the if they're able
to have a digital footprint of the card, right and they know that this
card has been greated and it's been a nine before and now it's a ten,
I'm wondering, you know, where the conflict there would be, Like
what would PSA accept it as a would they be able to grate as a
PSA ten. Well again, if the greater notes say that they put it
a nine because it had uh, you know, wax residue on the front
of the card, I think PSA would accept it. And if they wouldn't,
I promise you s well. Sgc's part of the PSA family. But
you know, or BGS or CGC or any of them. It's it again.
It depends on your definition of doctoring, and it depends on in our
industry. It's not okay for the graders to improve the card that's sitting in
front of them, to tweak a corner, to you know, wipe a
piece of dust off, perhaps, even which I don't think is so bad.
But they're richia. They're articulating what the problem was, and admittedly you're
sending back in the same card and they'll smell it. I think they're gonna
do a lot more smelling of cards to see is there any foreign substance on
there that remove that wax? If you put use some chemical which you don't
need to remove the wax, then yeah you should get bounced. But microfiber
doesn't have a smell, So if you're just rubbing it off, then I
think that's easily something that should be a no brainer that you can send through.
Mookie asked about us should they be public. We touched on this a
little bit. I think we all agree that at some point they will be
public. But also right now it's only for the Express level and up,
which I think is one hundred and twenty five dollars right now. So this
really seems like a toe in the water type of thing. Work out the
kinks. I think the last thing they want is to have, you know,
thousands of greater notes out there to the public that are wrong or you
know, don't in some way do what they want them to do. In
this way, they have a chance to deal with that. One other thing
that if you have full transparency, which I'm not advocating for this for any
grading company, but if you also knew not just the greater notes, but
who the greater was. That's like when you used to get in your pants
well partly well inspected by number forty three, or they used to have who's
number forty three? Then. But I'm just saying that there's always this conspiracy
or this theory of that certain grads at certain companies are easier than others,
more difficult, more experienced, more veteran whatever. And so if you knew
who was grading and what the greater notes would be, you would you'd understand
the process. You can't really say next time I submit, I don't want
that guy, you know, that doesn't work right. I want Jimmy.
Yeah, that'd be great. If you could make a request on your submission.
I'd like Jimmy. He's good with my corners, you know, or
something whatever. However, all grading companies have certain graders that have greater affinity,
greater affinity toward certain times and sets and companies and obscure stuff. I'm
guessing at p s A there's there's a few graders that get the not every
grader gets the pre war cards. For example, this is a this is
a good question. Uh are the cards reviewed by two people? My understanding
wasn't And maybe I'm wrong. Is there's somebody who checks it from a macro
level after it's gone through a detailed grade, either one of you familiar,
doctor Beckett. If there's a second set of eyes at any point, I
would hope and this, I you know, BGS at above a certain price
point, not the price of the the price of the card based if a
card is one thousand dollars or more. Absolutely, there's got to be a
second person looking at it, and not just the person that's doing the slabbing
to say, oh, yeah, that's the same guy that's the name on
the on the on the on the on the on the label. Now there
need to be there needs to be a verification. A senior grader, two
senior graders, even uh, depending on the the value of the card and
the and the rarity of the card. And I believe that happens. I
believe that it's just it's just good sense. If something's a base card,
you know, and it's not very expensive, then letter rip Ratt's got the
sports card shop two locations, got us on the big screen. He wants
to know what's the average time it takes a greater to greater card. First,
I'll ask Ratio, what do you think, because in my mind,
it should take you know, a good five to ten minutes, but I'm
guessing it's nowhere near that. Maybe I'm wrong. What's your what do you
think? No, I think it takes fifteen to twenty seconds. With the
amount of cards that PSA is grading and the number of graders that that had.
That might change depending on how many graders they've hired. But at one
point, if you saw the numbers from gem rate right there, you saw
how much how many cards PSA was grading and you and you kind of had
this awareness that they had somewhere between one hundred and twenty one hundred fifty greaders,
and you were saying, you know, realistically, they can't be spending
more than thirty seconds on a card on average. That's that's probably the correct
answer. And I don't want to ask doctor Beckett, but I wish it
was the five to ten minutes doctor Beckett. Roughly, how long does a
greater spend with a card? I did an episode with Greg Morris, a
couple episodes about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago,
and he can grade cards in two seconds. Now. He's not putting a
number on it, but he's put it. He can. He makes piles
and by the words of grading and he can do it. He is super
fast, and he puts it on eBay with his you know vgx or x
mint or near mint mint plus whatever, and he's he says he can do
it in a couple seconds, so it doesn't take very long. To get
your first impression, which is what he goes with. But when you're paying
fifteen dollars to get something slabbed, you're closer to what Horatio is saying.
It's not five or ten minutes. It might be five or ten minutes if
it's a wagoner or a fifty two tops mantle where you've got a whole bunch
of people coming in and looking at it. But for the run of the
mill card, it's it's it could it's way less than a minute, and
I'll be on average, there's going to be something. Well, I would
assume that a twenty five million dollars on a wagoner or something like that would
have a lot of eyeballs and a lot of time on it, where my
Zion Base Pandemic card probably went pretty quickly. Well. The other thing is
that we haven't gotten into but in the dynamic of it modern cards, which
is why BGS was doing so great and back in the day, is that
modern cards take a lot less time than vintage cards. Modern cards you're trying
to figure out if it's a nine point five or a nine with you know,
with a vintage card it could be five, six, seven, eight,
you know, there's a lot more finesse and and and it's just way
more difficult to do vintage. So if you're doing a bunch of base cards
and chrome and paper either one of them. Generally the corners are fine,
the edges are fine, the centering is obviously fine or not. So it
comes down to the surface. And so the difference between a ten and a
nine or a nine point five and a ten is the tiniest kind of a
scratch or fingerprint or something like that. But that doesn't take very long if
you have the kind of lights that I'm sure all you know BGS has,
and I'm sure all the others have, blue light, black light, regular
light. You know, you put light on something you're gonna see if there's
an imperfection. I'm right now. I'm curious for people who submit cards.
You know, when you look at your card to decide whether to submit it,
how long do you actually spend on the card deciding whether to submit it?
Horatio? Do you submit very rarely, very rarely? And I only
submit cards that I know, you know, like just by by looking at
it, they're going to give me like a p S. A five or
six or higher. And I've done that maybe a handful of times to to
resell cards. And I didn't need a high grade, right, like,
I'm not depending on a PSA ten. Like it was mostly vintage cards.
And if I knew I was gonna get a four or five, and that's
what I wanted for my you know, for what I want to get in
return, I was fine with that. There wasn't a big gamble to having
me submit. In fact, I knew that by submitting it to PSA,
my my, you know, I'd make out pretty well. So but I
I can't imagine telling that difference between a nine and ten, especially with these
chrome cards, like I don't have the eyes for that well. And that's
to my point, is you spend significantly more time than the greater did.
No, again, I don't think so. If you send it in and
you know it's at least a nine, but it might be a ten,
I mean that has to be what you're thinking. And that takes five seconds
tops to look at a card and say I don't see anything wrong with it,
but maybe they will put it in the pile to submit, or it's
a vintage card that has reasonable centering, reasonable corners, reasonable edges, reasonable
surface. You know, whatever you're you know, they say, you know
it's in the fifties, you're looking for fives or greater. In the sixties,
you're looking for sixties or greater in the seventies. That takes less than
five seconds. Guys, well, with all due respect, you're slightly more
talented than the average person. It depends on what you're If you have one
card, you're not going to spend five seconds on it, But if you
have one hundred cards, it'll average out to where you know, it really
doesn't take very long. If you've if you've never submitted, well then actually,
if you've never submitted a card, they need to go to a book
submitter and the bulk submitters. In five seconds, a card could say you
don't want to submit this, you do want to submit this, and so
it's not a skill that requires sixty years of hobby experience. Danny, I
also think, sorry, I also think that these greaters they have so many
I mean, they themselves become so good at it, right that they can
kind of, you know, take twenty seconds to get a card. I
mean, if that right, Like I imagine that after after a month or
two on the job, that you get really good at it, and you're
you know, you get trained pretty well and then you go from there.
Or Lando, this is fantastic And I'd love to hear more about this.
That he attended this c SG grading school. I remember when they put that
on and the final exam grade was ten cards and twenty minutes, greater notes
and catch one altered or fake card. Well, there's an aspect we didn't
bring into it was identifying fix and that speaks maybe more to the high value
cards, like doctor Beckett said, and more eyes on the higher value cards
because people don't fake commons. But I think that's that's an interesting thing.
So they're they're looking at roughly two minutes a card for a brand new person,
because you would have. But that's not the standard for them, guys.
I mean what they're looking for or literally for graters that can find the
flaws, and they're giving them plenty of time to do that. You can
teach speed, they can speed up later, but if they can't see the
flaws in twenty minutes, then they're not going to see it in two minutes.
And the people and again it's like if you've been to one of these
or these test things where you have an hour to take the test and some
dude walks up after fifteen minutes and what's his exam book down? It says,
I'm done, you know, and maybe acete it. I mean,
some people are just faster than others. But in the grating thing you want,
if they can't see the flaws, they flunk the test. And so
if it takes them a long time to see the flaw, in fact,
if they're sitting there for is this a flaw or not? I'm telling you
right now. If you think it might be a flaw and it's your card,
it's a flaw. I think this corner is soft, is it?
Is it really soft? If you think it's soft and it's your card,
it is a soft corner. It's not a ten or I a little damage
here on the edge, but I don't know about that. Okay, that's
how you flunk the grading test. You passed the grading test by in twenty
minutes. You've identified all the flaws and especially identified the either counterfeit altered,
you know, something something like that. That that's a really big deal.
That's a really big deal. How much incentive is there on speed financially?
The incentive is to keep your job. No, I mean I mean to
do the grading. Companies pay more if you're faster. Oh no, no,
you can't do it because because and we we we dealt with this is
that I'll tell you how to get We had the slowest guy that we had
was our best grader. It's because he got all the tough stuff, not
tough stuff, but the tougher, more obscure cards. But the guys that
were the more junior graders got a lot of the base cards. They could
they could get a lot of speed going. You can't pay people based on
speed. But if you don't have speed, you have to have that ability
to see the flaws and to and to do it quickly. And if you
can't, you're you're not gonna be You're gonna have trouble keeping your job.
So there's a there's a spree to corps that we've got to get these cards
done. But we've got to get it right. And if you've got a
problem, you've got to call the person you gotta you've got to tap the
person next to you in the in the cubicle with the special lighting and you
say, hey, can you take a look at this because I want to
make sure I get this right. And you've got to have a spree to
corps where the dude sitting next to you or the lady sitting next to you
doesn't say, hey, mind your own business. I'm doing my own cards.
I want to make my and you're slowing me up. They got to
say, hey, I'm going to take one for the team occasionally. I'm
going to make sure we as a collective group get it right now. I
hope all the grading companies do it that way. I love the insight on
this conversation. By the way, Orlando at his when he went to the
grading school said the cards were pregraded by Andy Broom, who's the head,
and you had to detect the flaws. He said he had a colored seventy
one card barely detectable, and Orlando, I assume you caught it. I
don't know how did you ace the test? This is another good question for
collector. Would get that because you as soon as I would see a seventy
one tops black bordered card in a grading test, I would think, oh
my goodness, let me get out my black magic marker. It's just but
with the right kind of light, which I'm sure they're equipping them that because
you may not be able to see it with the naked eye. And to
your point, if you're using a ten times loop with good light, you
can create a card in twenty to thirty seconds. There are videos on YouTube
with Andy Burrhm explaining the grading process, and I think that's part of it.
Is like you said, they built in the technology and the tools right
at their desks. It's not like me sitting at my desk where I don't
have the black letter, I don't have the ten time loop or whatever it
is. Is they're set up for success. And I think that's a key
thing is we have to remember is their job is grading, so all the
tools and everything they need is right there. And Orlando, congratulations. Yes,
they called me to offer a job later. Fantastic. Hopefully it's not
because they sold you that seventy one where there's one more coming. Yes,
Mookie says, I would watch a YouTube series Doctor B's g Greater School.
This is fascinating. I can talk the game. I don't think I can
walk the walk, Mookie, because my eyes aren't good enough anymore. You
know, I really can't see as well. But I know the concepts.
Orlando says the pace sucks starting at forty to fifty depending on experience. I
think that's where he was headed there. I think the pay goes up from
there pretty radically. If you're really Andy is one of the best. I
think you're talking about Andy Burm. Yeah. I think he's done a great
job of just transparency. I think that that's one of the things that we
like in any company. In the hobby and Horatio, when a lot of
people have talked about some of the grading companies and doctor Beckett, I want
to make this clear you you have no involvement in Beckett grading right now.
So there was some comments in the chat doctor Beckett, do you do you
have any working relationship with Beckett right now? I'm a customer there we go,
maybe not even a favored customer. I don't know, because there we
got I want to I have a I get a good rate, but it's
I don't I don't go to the front of the line. Sure surely don't
get preferential grades. But so it takes a while, but I get I
get my cards back and I'm you know, the grades or the grades I'm
telling you I've gotten so many cards that I thought were perfect, and they're
not. But they're ten ten, ten nine point five. And I'm thinking,
guys, what happened to the black level? Black label? Ten?
I've never gotten one and they say, and they just say, you bring
us a card that's deserving of it. We're gonna treat you like everybody else.
I think we're starting a new business here. How about a Doctor Beckett
fantasy camp. I'd be asking questions all day long and grading Doctor Beckett,
Ho would you feel about fifty strangers coming to your house for a week and
just camping out? It wouldn't be fifty that's actually a that's actually a possibility.
But it wouldn't be just grating, you know, but a day a
day here? Is it just be fun? Just be fun. I'd probably
have to charge, but it'd be it'd be fun to It could be maybe
before or after a show. Yeah, I mean, that'd be fun.
I mean, I'm getting older and I've got things i want to share visually
of showing cards as well as sharing some experiences and opinions and insights. So
I'm doing that on the podcast, but to do something in person at a
show or at my house sometime I've done something a little bit like that,
but it's more been like a dinner or a lunch or you know, something
shorter a day. Not sure about that. It wouldn't be fifty Danny,
wouldn't be fifty, Horatio. I know that you have a good relationship with
Andy Broom. Orlando says he's awesome that he showed him his minimum sized mantle
to get his opinion. It's minimum size. Talk to me about Andy and
his collecting, because I think people might be surprised, and I think you
know a little bit about what he likes to collect in older, more rare
Japanese and Asian cards. Victor Starfin. Yeah, this guy Andy and I
go way back. You know when we so, I said, I bought
the company of the company he was working for so I could get Andy.
So he was working for a different grading company, and we bought it,
brought in Andy, and Andy did great work for us for a long time,
and then he actually left and started the sports division with CGC or CSG.
They've changed branding. But he's a solid grader, solid grader, really
outstanding on vintage. It's what it's like the NAT Turner thing with being the
CEO of Collectors and me too. If you are a collector and you're in
charge, you're probably going to make better decisions. Andy is a collector,
was a great grader, and he was able to structure the new program down
there on exactly what he I think liked and didn't like about what we had
been doing and what he'd been doing before. And he knows his stuff,
so it's not a surprise to me that he's had some level of success.
Just like Nat Turner. I love seeing a collector in charge of a company
that's influential in our industry. Yeah. Yeah, and I'll add that I'll
say this much I love and this this is a testament to Andy broome Is.
I love CSG card graded cards out there, and for some reason they're
they're at a discount, it extreme discount from PSA cards. But I have
so much confidence buying the CSG slabs because I know the what Andy and his
crew kind of puts into grading the cards. I mean not to disparage any
other greating companies, but I'm confident I'd be more than willing to pay twenty
dollars less for you know, a CSG six over a PSA six, because
I know that if I did cross it over it would be a PSA six.
So yeah, he's been a really valuable kind of guy to ask questions
about. I know that he collects stuff. They're expanding into Asia big time
and so and he's got stuff from you know, these Asian card companies that
I've never heard of and that most nobody has ever heard of. But I'm
sure you'll hear about in two to three years. So he's ahead of the
curve in that way as well, not just the sports card stuff, but
also like the TCG stuff, prestige collectibles, Japanese baseball card says, I've
sold Andy many starf In cards. I have a twenty ten Andy Broom original
starfin Art card that he made. That's pretty cool. Orlando says that he
agrees with you, Horatio, So yeah, I've never gotten that message on
here before, so yeah, the first time for me. A thing too.
Yeah, before we pack it up, I always like to find out
what you guys are doing for the hobby for the weekend. Any new purchases,
Horatio, what have you picked up anything? How are you hobbying this
weekend? So a couple of things I collect vintage Tobacco cards of nic Aragua.
You know, I'm Nick Rogwin. So I picked up a Domino card
from you know, it's got different flags and real quick T fifty eight.
It's a fish series. I just completed my Piedmont set so with the with
the red nose Mino. So that's why I just picked up. This is
card number eighty five. I finally got it. So that's what I'm collecting
right now. Got for bucket anything else, I don't even know how to
follow that. At Ratio. I'm getting ready for the for the Dallas show
that's not this weekend but the next weekend. So that's I kind of from
show to show. I'm processing what I got at the previous show, and
I'm preparing. I'm going to take some cards in for grading ahead of the
show to BGS. I'll drop them off at the company Monday or Tuesday next
week before the show because they do a lot of business at the show,
so I want to get in ahead of that. And you know, I'm
getting some stuff ready to go to eBay, getting some stuff ready to go
to com see, and then buy a few cards at the at the at
the show. So this will be a quiet, quiet, quiet weekend for
the hobby other than highlight of being on Hobby Outlaw right. Absolutely, we
didn't even get to the fact that the National's coming up. So next week,
I'm sure they'll talk about it, but I think, you know,
we're kind of got that on the horizon as July comes on Monday, Horatio,
do you want to share anything about the National? Well? One,
yeah, one thing. I've got to write an article for you, Danny
Hobby News Daily. Don't I never forget, man, I know, I
turn it in late Sunday nights sometimes, but I'm working on an article.
It kind of has to do with the National. Actually has to do with
how you can help a couple of people that will be at the National.
I won't be there. My wife is you know, she's expecting with twins.
So my life got turned upside down a couple of months ago when I
found out, or you know, six months ago when we found out.
So but there are there are a couple of guys. Eric Hecker Rack of
the Day. I've talked about him before. He gives away cards, so
I'll be writing about that. And also Tim Verhelio, he runs signatures for
soldiers he'll be at the National as well, and he's looking for a little
bit of help, So I'll be writing about that. If you guys don't
know about them, look them up and see if you can help. Now,
a great call. That's that's what Hobby Paloosa was raising money for.
I think they said a record this year, but it's never enough. There's
always a need for more. And that's true for any philanthropic organization. Yeah,
absolutely, mad, said you, Bruce is lol homework, Horatio,
Well, congrats. Ratio is baseball card. In baseball cards, we call
twins doubles. See and John Keating says, do you think your life was
turned upside down six months ago? Yeah? So there's all the support and
that you need. And you might be pulling a double chef. We'll figure
out the details, but you might be on next week. We'll see,
because then you're going to disappear on us if you if you had a goat
a whale, a fabulous card, who wouldn't want to have two of that
card? Hey, there you go, and guess what you'll like one better
than the other. You just can't tell them, all right, talking guys,
thank you doctor Beckett. Horatio to the chat room. This was this
was really eye opening. Sorry to ask so many greating questions, but I
think this is something that everybody has an interest in and a lot a lot
of things for the hobby. So we will see you next time. Take
care for Next week is episode three seventy eight. Wow three excuse me,
three h seven s FO numbers. Yeah,