It's time to talks for its time for the show. You hear this song
on the radio? Better fast, let me get that photograph. Sports Talk
Radio starting now. What's up everybody, and welcome episode one hundred and ninety
three. Um, let me host National Collector's Convention show. Of course,
my name is the d h Or Drew and joining me my cohost mister Scott
Rappit for who I actually got to see last week? What's going on?
Brother? Oh dude, it was dude. It was awesome getting a chance
to you know, actually be in person the one time a year that that
actually happens. I wish I wish you hadn't been tied to the booth,
you know so much, so we had more of a chance to walk around
and talk about more about Pat Wager. Yeah, exactly, so um,
but no, it was definitely good. Good to actually see in person.
You know. It was really funny because on my phone while we were at
the National you know how you get your memory or a Facebook, you know
how you get your Facebook memories. It's like you have a memory one year
ago today was Scott Rapp before I clicked on it, and it was our
one year photo together and I was like, we just took that yesterday,
I know, and we had I don't know if we took that many pictures
together. I know we got one shot with Denny, Yeah, that he
took, and I'm a little this point. He didn't, you know,
add that into his photo dump. You better? Oh, I know exactly,
but but here's the thing. I know. He also, uh,
he also took a shot with Mike Geo, our buddy from Sports Card Nonsense,
and that didn't make the photo dump either, So both Mikey, we're
giving him a little crap about that on Instagram, so of course, but
no before we do get sorry, a big shout out to Danny. It
was great to meet. If you guys don't know, Denny's cards on Instagram,
wonderful, wonderful guy and a major supporter of this show and everything we
do. And he has a new show out that's absolutely amazing as well,
so go check him out. But definitely one of the people I was most
excited about seeing this weekend. Was great. Yeah, we meet him.
So Danny, when you listen to this, thanks for everything you do and
it's great meeting you, bud. But hey, next time, we gotta
make the photo of him. I mean at least put on the final cut,
I know. And I'm gonna tell you that dude is an absolute riot.
Oh oh yes, Yeah, that dude is so much fun. Yes,
you know, it's like definitely one of the guys that you know,
I'm I'm hoping to get a chance to hang out with, you know,
the massive ball of positive energy. Like he's having so much fun all the
time. He's so educated on everything, but like the way he's just like
you said, he's just a pure joy, just a ton of fun every
I saw him multiple times this weekend and it was it was awesome. And
we're gonna have him on the show very very soon. We're gonna do a
post national show with him as the next few weeks we'll be covering people well
we talk to things like that at the National. He will be coming on
the show soon. But yeah, it was great to finally get to put
a put a face to the name and finally get some one on one time,
even if it wasn't a lot for me. Yeah, and it's you
know, it's it's weird because we you know, we we do typically audio
only and that's you know, with the exception of a couple episodes A here
and that. I'm gonna tell you guys, I'll give you a hint and
rates later. That is going to change, uh, starting next week.
Yes, we're not doing it this week because I am at the lake on
vacation and I don't want that that background being there. But that's going to
change now. But the you know, the cool thing is it's like we
do get recognized. You get recognize more than I do, but I do
get recognize sometimes, and it's usually when people like hear me talk right,
and it's like oh yeah, um. But the guys, you know,
it's funny because you know, the guys that do a lot of video content
and things like that, you see their face, you know who they are.
You can pick them off from a crowd, and you kind of feel
like you know each other, like you don't even have to jump into like
a introduction conversation because we all know who we are. And it's it makes
it very interesting. And I've always felt that like, Okay, maybe this
is what Hollywood is like, you know, with all the actors and things
like that, like they've never met before, but they've seen each other's work.
They know who they are. And you know, I think the card
community is very much like that as well, with you know, especially with
all the people that are putting out content. It was it was great to
get a chance to you know, hang out with some of the guys that
no you know, do put out Definitely was um that's one of my favorite
things to do every year. But I would like to say to everyone that
is listening, especially for those that went to the National the amount of you
came up to me this weekend that I did not that I did not know
at all at whatsoever, did not know your name or anything, and talked
about how much you guys love the show, how much you listen to the
show, keep doing what you're doing, so many different compliments. I was
recognized everywhere from on the floor to the elevator in our hotel. I think
five different times we were inside with different people like it was. It was
very humbling and I greatly appreciate it. So I do want to take one
second to just say thank you to you guys. It was really cool.
It was different. I mean, obviously every year people hear you and they
know your voice, and you know, some of the people some of the
people that are more active on comments and everything like that. But these were
just random people and for that, you know in the crowd, and so
it just thank you guys so much. It means a lot that you listen
and a show like this often remind you, you know, how much kind
of an impact we do have on the hobby is. It can be easily
forgotten. You know, we put these up, they're out in space,
and then who knows what happens exactly. Now before we get into the rest
of our recap for the national there's something big that happened the other day and
it involves some of who I honestly didn't even know was in the you know,
the hobby in general. No, I had no idea, and so
we all know that, you know what a month ago or so, a
little over a month ago, Yes, the the one ring lord of the
rings magic card got pulled, the one of one sent PSA graded to nine.
We had no idea who pulled it, but it just sold. And
you're you were not surprised by this as to who was the buyer, No,
but I was because I had no clue that he was in the hobby.
And when I say the hobby, I'm lumping in. I'm lumping in
SPORTSGCG into the same into the same collectible industry. Yeah, exactly, so
once you tell us a little bit about what happened. No, absolutely so.
When the card was pulled, obviously everyone's first question was, well,
who pulled it? Because we saw images of it, we saw it when
it was graded. We never saw it ungraded. We never saw a video
of the pull. We never saw who pulled it. They never their name
public. Now I kind of see why. But he did make a two
point six. Now this is what's being reported, and it was valuated at
two million dollars. And apparently what they're saying is that it was sold for
two point six. But his name, the man who pulled it at least
is Brooke Trafton. He is, he's from Canada, and he was just
a simple retail worker. Not like everyone was expecting. They said it was
given to some celebrity or some hot box or something. Nope, just a
regular old guy, regular collector. That's who pulled it. He kept it
really quiet, like you said, went through PSA graded A nine. Probably
would have went through Beckett had that offer been announced before he graded it,
but it wasn't. But he graded the card through u PSA, got the
nine, put it up, put up a video right during the national right
towards the end, and finally showing the card ungraded like right when he pulled
it. He had taken a video, and then he put up another video
showing that this was his card and that he wanted that he was a huge
fan and wanted to get this card to post Malone. Within forty eight hours
of that video being posted, another video is up of him in a room
with post Malone. Post Malone holding the card and confirming the deal, saying
all right, let's do it. Post Malone bought the card for reportedly two
point six million dollars, shattering the biggest sale for magic the gathering period,
as I believe the one before that was around I want to say, around
one hundred and fifty thousand to one hundred and seventy five thousand the Black Lotus
Artist Proof autograph, which that was the one that had the biggest sale before.
So post Malone now owns the top MTG cards basically in terms of sales
in the hobby in general. But post Malone bought the one ranked card.
He is a huge magic player, has been for a long time. There's
a lot of videos you can go out and find of him actually playing the
game like he still plays it. Um. But imagine, imagine showing up
at at a tournament somewhere and you know, you're you know, you wind
up getting a random draw at a table and you sit down and you know
your opponent is post Malone. Yeah, I just I fuck it at that
point because you know that that deck is stacked. It's and I don't,
like, I don't even I don't know the game. I don't know the
rules, you know, I do know like with Pokemon, you can only
go back, you know, in tournaments, you can only go back a
certain period of time. Yeah, you know, so you can't play with
cards from any face from base set, you know, ninety six, things
like that. Um. I don't know if Magic is the same rules or
not, but that that kind of that does change things. But yeah,
if you've got these these giant cards, but I'm sure post Post can afford
any card he wants. So if he could, in theory, put together
like the most ultimate deck, well that's that's the thing. I saw a
lot of people saying, they're like, you know, they were bashing the
valuation like everyone does. You know, it's got to be negativity. So
they attack the two point six blah blah blah for this, such a waste
of money, YadA, YadA, YadA. Yeah, two point six million
for him is nothing, especially for a collector. I mean, then that's
what we talked about when we talk about these high end cards all the time,
Like you may see the price tag and say, holy shit, that's
a ridiculously stupid price. It might be for mine and yours and my buddies,
tax brackets and all that, but for the people buying these cards,
it's not. And so I mean, I firmly see the value in this,
especially for a collector, and I think it's wonderful for the community in
multiple ways. A it shines a massive light on magic, more than they've
had probably in I don't know twenty some years, shining a major light on
magic, but also bringing pop culture, bringing attention. This hit TNZ,
This has hit all the big newspapers and hit everything. In anytime, our
hobby can get more mainstream. I'm sorry. That's a great thing. I
don't know, that is a great thing. I will and I will say
this guy did the right thing in keeping it quiet on who it was.
He basically followed the same rules that they tell people to follow when you hit
a you know, huge lottery jackpot. Yeah. Shut you know, shut
your mouth, don't tell anybody sign the back of the ticket. Hopefully he
got himself an accountant, an a tax attorney or something like that, because
you know, well, I mean, you think our taxes are bad here
Canada, holy crap. But you know, at the same time, this
is a guy. This he's not you know, some huge collector. This
isn't like, you know, Drake dropping a ridiculous amount of money looking for
the Lebron triple logo. Man. No, this is a retail worker grabbing
probably one or two boxes exactly and now he you know, he's got life
changing money. Yes, this is exactly like winning the lottery. No.
Yeah, these are the stories the hobby needs. Yeah. But this also,
you know, goes along what I've I've always said about you know guys
that rip wax is. You know, wax is very much like lottery scratch
off tickets very much. You know, sometimes you break even, sometimes you
lose, sometimes you wind up hitting big. And this guy has clearly hit
big. Yeah, life, life changing money for him for share. I
love it because the speculation was you know someone but on everyone online, someone
big got it. It's you know, it's going to be revealed that some
you know Drake all people got the one ring or something like that. But
no, it's just a retail worker in Canada, normal guy, quiet guy
from everything I've seen, who did the right thing documenting it pregrading. You
can though, he kept it to himself, which is fine. And then
obviously obviously PSA publicized that they graded the card. They never they'll never release
you know, who sent it in unless they get that, unless it's you
know, unless they get approval, unless you know that well of course yeah,
if you get permission, and if they get permission thro the guy stuff
like that, absolutely, but what you know, unless they do, they're
they're not going to do that. And you know, obviously we know that
that offer was out there for Beckett to grade it for free, including airfare
and the special slab and like zon case, all that stuff, right,
But I'm curious as did PSA charge him for the grading. I doubt it.
But also he did submit the card, which we did find out before
the beckett um offer was even announced yep, So had the Beckett offer been
on the table for him, who knows what slab that would be in.
You know, the only way to know for sure would be to ask him
answer yeah, and that's uh, you know right. Well, there's one
other guy we can ask um, you know, for that, we can
always reach out to our buddy Chris Carlin. Um very true, who ran
into with the National So much fun, dude, I love I love Chris.
I don't think anyone's ever had a bad interaction with Chris Carlin. He
is absolutely amazing. Yeah, and actually speaking well speaking of bad interactions.
So now we're back here, So I got to spend a lot of time
with our our buddy John from Dendriver Card shows. Yes last week, absolutely
first time I've met him in person. Absolutely an amazing guy. Had a
ton of fun with him, and he gave me and you know about this
too. He gave me an update on his story with you know, his
bad experience of PSA after he got screwed with the faked slabs that he came
up the show and talked about a couple months ago. I'm not we're not
gonna talk about it now, but we are going to have John back on
in the next couple of weeks to give us the update. And the reason
I'm teasing this now is because well, Chris Carlin plays a part in that,
so you know, keep an eye on that for the you know,
in a future episode. I don't want to steal the thunder, but I
want John to come back on and actually tell us what happened, because it's
it's actually a really cool story, all right. So we'll definitely have him
on in the very very coming weeks, as Denver Card Shows does have their
next show at the end of this month, so yep, we'll have him
on to talk about that story and the upcoming show and everything like that here
very soon exactly, all right. So post Malone buys the car where I
mean I actually, truthfully, if it was going to be somebody who you
need, I expected Peter Jackson maybe to buy it. Yeah, right,
you know, he's got money, he's got you know, But no,
it's and obviously he's got huge ties to Lord of the Rings. But no,
I went to post Malone a massive player of magic, and that's new
to me. So it's like, okay, cool, I had no idea
he was into that, but evidently I'm the only one that didn't know that
he was into that. So good way to good way to end the weekend.
No, absolutely, absolutely, So going back though to the beginning of
the week, Yes, let's go Bath Starter NC coverage, let's go into
Yeah, let's go into you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, everybody rolling in
got a chance to you know, catch up with everybody. I had a
really random chance encounter with Derek Jeter. Yes you did on Thursday morning.
Um, yeah, you got to see that. That was that was weird.
Uh did not expect that? Yes? I did. And here's the
thing, so he was hanging out of the Arena Club booth before the show
floor open and got a chance to take a picture with him, And yes,
I did tell him, Hey, if you ever wanted to come on
the show and talk about Arena Club and he's like that that we would love
to have him on. Wound up, you know, talking afterwards to Jesse
from Arena Club, m oh yeah, those guys were great. They were
set up above across from us all week. Wonderful guys. So hopefully,
I don't know, maybe maybe there's a there's like a one percent chance maybe
we get Derek jeter on I, you know, talk about anytime. Uh
yeah, you are welcome. Welcome somebody for you. There's not many,
but I'll bump someone for it. I'll bump I Drew. I would.
I'll bump Drew to get cheter on, you know exactly. Um, So,
yeah, I did that. Did happen? I have another awesome story,
but I'm gonna save that for a little bit later in the show because
I did bring Ethan, my son with me on Friday, Um, when
the show is in Chicago. I usually do that once, you know,
take one day and try not to do anything and just bring him with and
get a chance to walk around and do that. Enjoy happened day with your
son at the National exactly, and something, I mean something always happens and
it's just it just becomes weird. This got even weirder. Uh So I'll
talk about that in a little while. Um, but you had a chance
to walk around. I had a chance to walk around. I had a
chance to buy the twenty twenty three tops Chrome jumbo box that the Otani super
Fractor came out of. And so it was my buddy Ronnie from Elite Sports
Cards here in Chicago. Um, you know who was set up in the
New area is the one who had the box that the kid bought that ripped
you know, that ripped it, pulled the the Otani. I didn't do
any jumbo, but I was there not long before the kid was there and
was giving serious consideration to picking up a couple of those jumbo boxes from him.
And he only he only had three, uh and of those and I
would have bought them all of course about it, So I was kicking myself
for that, but I'm happy that, you know, it was a random
kid that wind up pulling Instaid one of the big breakers. And you know,
yeah, all right, So what else did you What did you see
that you absolutely fell in love with? Um? Well, oh, man,
I mean a ton of stuff. Let's one thing that was really cool
to tell, one really cool story, and then I want to talk about
just a lot of different things from the National in general. Did get a
chance to hang out with Ed Reid for a while, which was really cool.
Okay, Ed Reid was out at Gibson's when we were reading at Gibson's
and we actually ran into him. He ended up coming over finding out that
we were a PSA submitter. He was sending with another grading company that I
won't mention PAGs and he wasn't happy with the results, so he wanted to
come over and switch over to PSA. So he now subs with us.
We got said Reid for a little bit, lock that account down, so
to speak, and a couple other things. And I will tell you Ed
Reid is one of the coolest dudes in the world. This was the most
down to earth guy I've ever seen. Within five minutes, he acted like
he was your best friend, like he introduced himself, and within five minutes
of talking to him, it's like you're talking to someone you've known forever.
So I've heard I've heard a lot of good things about Ed Reid over the
years. Unbelievable, sable guy. I can't say enough good things about Ed
Reid. I've always been a fan, but I'm a much bigger fan now,
just on the way he interacted with total strangers. Now, granted he
wanted a new business, but he had not He did not have to go
to the lengths he went to. So that was a whole lot of fun.
Um. That was probably my cool fun celebrity interaction of the weekend if
you will. Outside of just talking to so many of you, the listeners
and just people at the show, that was, Like I said, that
was the most humbling and most incredible thing. Also, the main stage was
awesome. Thank you to everyone who came out to see hobby hotline on that.
No, you couldn't hear a lot of it online. That's because their
microphones. You literally have to eat them to make to make a noise.
Um. But yeah, I had a lot of fun. But I will
say one thing after this, after this National to actually two things. One,
Chicago has to be a destination for the National every other year, if
not every year. It's fucking amazing. I'm sorry not going to I am
not going to argue that point. The National in Chicago is fucking amazing,
from food to layout to how they do the bag check at the front everything.
This could have been a clusterfuck. I mean they set the record,
We set the record this weekend for the most attended National ever. This could
have been awful. And yes, some people complained, oh it was hot.
Try being there on Moving Day when they opened all the doors. Wasn't
hot during the show. I mean it was a little warm, but it
wasn't hot considering all the people there. The internet was good. I have
no complaints whatso after. Ever after this show, and if you listen to
last year's post national show, I had nothing but complaints. This last year
was Yeah, last year was bad. There was a lot of stuff I
went up. But here's the thing. So the air conditioning issue. The
air conditioning was running. The problem is we had so many areas that were
close to the doors, and even though the doors were closed, and the
fact that it was like mid nineties with one hundred percent humidity and felt like
it was you know, the triple digits. Any air conditioning is going to
have a hard time keeping up with that, especially und thousand people are more
exactly normally it is not like that normally. It's like, you know,
once it drop the weekend was great. It was dropped down into the eighties
and you know, the AC was able to keep up and there were still
some hot spots, but a lot of that had to do with you know,
electricity usage and things like that. There was going on some of these
boots, some of the lighting that was used that generated some extra heat,
so that you know, that created the problem. Then that's going to be
a problem anywhere, but to see the biggest yeah, well no, I
was gonna say. The biggest takeaway that that really I took from the National
was just how freaking enormous it was. And I said this on Hobby Hotline
when we were on the main stage. Okay, we all knew they were
expanding the floor. We all knew it was what twenty the two hundred thousand
ors out in square feet, whatever it was that they were adding to the
floor. We all knew that months going into it. Never once did I
try to visualize what that would look like. I took the number and said,
Okay, yeah, it's gonna be a little bit bigger. No no,
no, no no. This wasn't just a little bit bigger. This
was absolutely enormous. I never put I never put it in my head to
say, Okay, what's this gonna look like. And I looked back at
the National last time it was in Chicago, and then I realized they pretty
much added the entire floor space. They doubled the entire floor space is outside
of the Breaker pavilion. So yeah, you're just massive. Just enormity of
this blew my mind. And I mean we always say you can't do the
National in a day. Well, if it keeps getting this big, good
God, you can't do the National in a weekend. I mean you're gonna
need the entire You're gonna need the entire five days to hit that entire floor
now, because it is huge. I was there all week and I did
not get a chance to see everything in every area and things like that.
In fact, I didn't even discover where they moved the pokey stand too until
Saturday. I never found it was in the hall well in twenty nine or
last year twenty twenty one, it was in the lobby and it was great.
It was easy to find. This year, they put a bar there
and they tucked away the pokey stand in an area like a corner of the
original hall. Okay, that's why. Yeah, and then it was hard
to find and in a cramped area things like that, and I, um
so I didn't find that they'll Saturday. But I think it was amazing.
I think the displays were absolutely phenomenal. We got a chance to see some
really cool stuff. I'm a little disappointed at the you know, I'll talk
about mascot for a minute, because we had Ezra on the last show before
the National I love their booth, I love the demos that they were doing.
They got a lot of positive feedback, you know, from a lot
of people. I just didn't like the fact that they were tucked away in
the back row facing the back wall, right, so like you couldn't you
couldn't find where they were. And and look, I understand that you've got
to be able to put people where they can fit. Yeah, but at
the same time, you know, it would have been nice to see them,
especially being in a corporate visible you know, they could have moved things
around a little bit. Which granted there were two corporate areas this year,
which but um, but no, I agree, And and it wasn't limited
to just Mascot or a couple other boots like that too, but Mascot in
particular was a little difficult to find. And yeah, if you could find
it, like you said, phenomenal booth layout, amazing demos, and from
everyone I talked to and from the people I saw, and when I got
a chance to talk with Ezra, looked like it was going phenomenal forms.
So oh it was going. It was going great for them. And I
will say they had the most comfortable chairs. Yeah, they had the big
poofy poofy white chairs and they had the best lighting. So when I needed
to get a good looks lighting in that room is always terrible. So when
I needed to get a good look at a card to determine whether or not
I want to grade it or not, in fact I did, I did
my ripping at their booth. You know, they were kind enough to let
me steal the table to you know, do some ripping back there. But
their lighting was the best, so I was able to get, you know,
a good look at everything and things like that. But yeah, I
kind of wish that they had had a better location. But something that was
different this year. I don't know if you had a chance to make it
into the VIP Lounge. I did, but Ludex sponsored the VIP Lounge and
they did something a little bit different. So in the past years, the
VIP Lounge is just a room with a bunch of tables in you know that
if you had a VIP pass, you can get in there and you can
sit down and just you can exactly. Yeah. Yeah, this year though,
not only did they bring in a you know, a couple of food
vendors in there, but they also had other vendors that were set up,
and some of them rotated and some of them, you know, we're permanent,
but you know, so you could walk in, you could buy food
and not have to worry about those same lines and the you know you're fighting
where they ran out of hot dogs and pizza for a couple of days.
Yeah, but come on, guys, this is Chicago, right, the
two things that you should never run out of or hot bugs. But they
also put up a stage and they ran a lot of great content on that
stage. You know, people that you know, you wouldn't have seen up
on, you know, the main stage, some smaller stuff. I know,
they who did I see up there? Cashus Marsh was up there doing
a bunch of stuff. A couple other guys are Buddy Tim from Slab Strong
Corey from Show Your Slabs. They were up there doing a panel. But
you know, it just it was a really it was a cool room.
They made it very interactive and one of the really cool things that I saw.
And this is the reason that I came back on Sunday. I originally
wasn't going to come Sunday, but I got a chance Saturday night in the
back area, you know, the curtained off area of the VFP lounge.
I got a chance to hang out with Lauren Taylor. And for those of
you who don't know who Lauren is, she is known as you know,
the tops artist, but she you know, creates some absolutely amazing sports related
artwork. She did some soccer stuff that actually got her a trip to the
Women's Champions League final in Italy to present this work and you know, taking
the game and things like that. Like she I found out that she really
was releasing a product that is incorporating her artwork. You know, some things
are new, some things are things she's previously done. And you can buy
a pack of this. There's three four by six prints in each pack and
we'll share the information and some pictures and stuff that I took on Instagram once
we get this episode posted. Um, but it is awesome. There's certain
you know, parallels that she's done that are shorter print than others that are
there. There are versions that you know, you can get that our artists
signed, you know, and things like ID. But it's it's a really
cool thing and these things would look absolutely amazing in a graded slab. Yeah,
once they once they get in there. I had a lot of fun
talking with her on Saturday night, so I had to come back Sunday morning
when they were debuting the product, and that was debut. It wasn't on
the it wasn't on the show floor, it wasn't you know, it was
in the VIP lounge. So that was. Yeah, that was a lot
of fun. And you know, like I said, we'll share I'll share
some pictures and things like that on on Instagram of what the product looks like
and you know, kind of what the what the checklist is going to because
I gonna picture for the checklist and it's it is baseball related nice um,
so it's going to appeal to a lot of people, and it's you know,
because ye Lauren does, like you said, some absolutely incredible work.
And that's that's a really cool little twist. And we talked about this on
the main stage a lot too. The uh, the major presence of you
know, card artist and card art in the world, and not just I'm
not just talking about you know, people like card Card or card Killer,
Tim, Tim Carroll, things like that. I'm talking about the actual artist
that made the cards and then responsible for so much stuff that you guys see
where it used to be a little footnote on the back of the card,
you never knew who did it. Now those artists are getting the wreck mission
that they properly deserve in this hobby and that have always deserved in this hobby.
And they they're able to do things like Tyson Beck does you know custom
drops with certain players. Now Lauren Taylor being able to take her amazing portfolio
of these just incredible designs and being able to get them out to you with
her name attached to it. I think it's an awesome thing for the hobby.
And I think it's something that I mean, it's a really big growing
niche market of the hobby. Yeah, no, absolutely. And then outside
of that, you know some of the displays, so Panini put up their
display and you know this is an old you know, this is a week
old story because you know you did the video talking about arch manning them.
You know that announcement, uh, you know, signing him the like And
I must have walked past that thing ten times where we filmed, right and
until we walked up there to pick the location on where we were going to
film that, I didn't even notice that arch Manning card was on that.
Yeah, they had been teasing it for days and no one saw it,
and nobody thought nobody noticed, no, and it was right there and really
big. Yeah, and look at the reality is the people that would have
before, the people that would have seen it before the announcement were, you
know, anybody who had early set up for the dealers and you know and
things like that, because they announced it on Wednesday morning, you know,
anybody who was able to get in there, you know, the corporate set
up Monday or early set up on Tuesday for dealers and things like that.
You know, there's where we would have noticed it, but nobody noticed it.
Nobody said anything about it. And then we walk up there to film
that piece because we knew we wanted a Panini backdrop for it because it was
a Panini announcement, and it's like, holy shit, there's like a Canning
card right there. It was there. How did I not notice that the
you know, the ten or fifteen times that I walked right past that.
It seems like a trade see Hackler detail. Nowada's back with Panini. That
seems like something tracy. That that seems like a tracy idea to me before
we do. It does seem like a Tracy idea. But speaking of Tracy,
I had and I sent you the picture of this. I had an
awesome opportunity to play a little game of not where's Waldo, but where's Tracy.
I was looking for him because I knew he was there, so I
asked one of the guys at Panini, like, hey, you guys seem
Tracy and he just he just looks towards this area and he's like, hmmm,
where's Tracy. And I'm like looking at it, you know, like
he's like, he's in this area. And I look over there, I
don't see him on the ground, and all of a sudden, I look
up and he literally climbed the scaffolding of the Panini booth and was sitting on
top with a microphone as they were doing pack Wars. And I'm dying laughing
because he's great, It's phenomenal. How is he well one? How did
they let him up there without wearing a harness? Yeah, I guarantee you.
I probably tried to put something no, no, no, he was
doing it, or or he just did it. He just didn't like,
I'm gonna climb up there. And do this. So he so he wound
up up there and I'm just I'm dying laughing, you know. I point
up to him and he just you know, he starts laughing and waves down.
I mean like like all right, that's cool. I got a chance
to give him a little crap for it the next day, yeah, when
I saw him. But it's you know, the fun things like that.
This, these are the things you don't see. I also got a chance
so Nate Burns, I don't know, from a Grand Slam down in Nashville.
He picked up as part of part of this thing that he bought a
you guys are familiar with the tops of the nineteen ninety tops George HW.
Bush cards that they put out and one hundred of them were given to you
know, to him at the White House. Well, he was able to
pick one up that was signed on the back by George Bush. I got
a chance to see that in person, and that's it's just yeah, that
is really cool. It's a piece of history, the you know, the
letter that came along with it. Got a chance to see the SGC nine
making fifty two tops making mantle that Herritage Auctions has up. Unfortunately, the
picture I took it that did not show up in my phone for some reason,
along with the picture that I took with my buddy are and we're gonna
have already coming on in the show in a couple of weeks. Here a
great story. You'll actually hear him in a little while when we talked about
the signatures of soldiers stuff. So we have an interview with him. He
joined me for that his first national convention. He just got back into the
hobby a couple of years ago, just retired from the Navy after twenty four
years. And he came up to visit his parents and his sister, and
he came with his dad, and I actually got a chance to play tour
guide with him for like an hour and a half, two hours, and
it was the most fun that I've ever had at a National convention. So
what okay, So what else did you get it? It's a sea Well,
I spent a lot of time in the booth, so I got to
see a lot of really cool cards. I will say that a ton of
submissions outside of that, just I mean everything, man, the whole thing,
the whole vibe. That's what I took away from it last year felt
like, I don't know, it just it didn't have electricity to it.
It just felt like it was there and people were coming in by day two
or by day three. It didn't seem like much excitement was there this weekend.
The thing I took away most was the excitement factor from literally early set
up until people were absolutely gone on Sunday. It just the electricity, the
excitement, the amount of stuff that moved, the amount of vintage that moved.
Yeah. Yeah, the amount of vintage we took in was the most
we'd ever taken in, and it was in a weekend, and in a
week was insane that. I mean, just so much stuff. Man,
I could go on forever. I do an entire episode on some of the
stuff I saw this weekend. I thought, I thought everyone did an incredible
job. I thought the boosts were amazing. I think a lot of a
lot of companies did a wonderful job of making it a much more interactive experience
as opposed to here's what we got and that's it. That a lot of
people made a really focused effort, whether it be Upper Deck with their panel
that they had, you know, all weekend, they had a little stage
with their new company they set up with given some really cool information they had.
You know, obviously the main stage like always, but it didn't center
all around Breaking like it felt like last year with the big Whatnot strip and
a massive Breakers pavilion. You know, it felt more of a of a
card shitt felt more of like the National again. It felt more like a
card show again. And I don't know, well, I think part of
that, part of that, with the not feeling like a big Breakers can
mention. I think a lot of that had to do with the layout of
the room in Chicago versus the layout out in Atlantic City, because Atlantic City
it's just the room was just one long strip, where Chicago it's broken up
into you have the two large halls and then you've got the two smaller you
know rooms in between the halls that you know, one of them is Breakers
and PSA and the other one they actually turned into more dealer tables. So
but I actually have I have raw numbers because so if you as you guys
know, you know, I'm in the merchant processing business as my day job,
and i have a lot of clients that are set up at the National
that are using my service, and I'm not going to give you exact numbers,
because that that's private info. But what I can tell you is that
compared to I'm not even to compare to Atlantic City. I want to compare
to twenty twenty one in Chicago. Okay, three times the volume? Wow?
Yeah Now, and I have no idea what was done in cash?
Yeah yeah, that's simple processing stuff. This is simply people that made purchases
on credit cards. Yeah, the volume was three times greater this year than
it was in twenty twenty one in Chicago. And that was I mean shit,
twenty twenty one Chicago, that was peak. I mean that was one
of the blow up years. Yes, that was still you know, we're
still talking about you know, the pandemic boom yea at that point and this
year and a lot of the drivers, I think for a lot of my
wax dealers that work with a lot of the driver was tops Chrome coming out.
That stuff was moving like crazy. And we'll talk about that as a
product next week. Yes, but I've got some like I've had some I
hit some amazing stuff. But you know what the best thing about it was
so ripping that stuff in the tops Chrome, one of the products that launched
at the National this year, and I love I love when they do product
launches at the National. Our buddy Clint from Zion cases, Yeah, mag
Pro and we look, we knew this was coming, but I've never actually
seen one in person. Holy crap, these things are in yep, you
did, did tell me? The sparkly stuff from tops Chrome looks really nice.
Oh yeah, and these things the it is like they are crystal clear.
Yea. It's you know, like if you've ever seen a CSG slabs.
Yeah, the clarity of the CSG slabs is I think is actually the
best out of any greater you know, any grading company that's out of st
the clearest you know, clearest plastic and stuff like that. It's like that.
And look, don't get me wrong, I love Ultrapro. They're a
great company. I love BCW, They're a great company. But I am
not going back to one touches from from any of those companies. The only
the only downside is you've got to store them with your graded cards because they
are a little bit taller. Yes, you know, they do have a
little they do have a Yeah, they've got a flip that you can put
on it too, which is really cool. But I am not going back
to the standard one touches. I am it's going to be Magpro. You
know the Zion cases Magpro from here on out, because they are absolutely amazing.
No, oh, they're They're incredible. When he showed me a couple
of months ago, and I'd keep it quiet for a long time, so
I was able to drop a couple of hints. But when he showed me
these at one of the collect cons and what they were bringing, I was
like, oh man, this is gonna be huge, and I knew it.
The National was going to be the debut, And you guys can check
out when I was doing a random box rip one more and Scott came by
and did a beautiful example with some tops chrome of those magpros. It's on
our Instagram to let me get that photograph Instagram, so go check that out
if you'd like to see what they look like. We did about a ten
fifteen minute video discussing those for quite a bit, but definitely check out what
they look like. But I'm right there with you, man, once you
finally got to use them, get him in hand, actually really work with
them some as opposed to just checking it out. Game Changer right, just
yeah, yeah, and that's that's that's one of those things. It's like,
holy crab, and you were only you were expecting to do a quickie
you know, prison monopoly rip in that video. You had no idea that
you know, we'd be doing a we'd be doing a product review with that.
So we's part about the National. You start out opening a box board
by yourself and you end up having some fun. No exactly. Um.
Now here's the other thing with the National. So their official charity for the
last couple of years has been Signatures for Soldiers, and we've had Tim on
the show multiple times over the years to you know, talk about it.
Unfortunately, because of scheduling, we didn't get a chance to bring him on
before the National. But something big happened with them, and it is an
absolutely amazing story. And I got a chance to sit down with him and
my buddy Ari in tow and talk with him about exactly what happened and what's
going on. So take a listen to this. Hey, everybody, Scott
here. Drew was off doing Hobby hot Line right now, so I am
taking over the reins briefly, and we have our old buddy Tim Bergilio from
Signatures of Soldiers here with us? Tim, how you doing? I'm what
else? Scott? How are you man? Doing? Excellent? How has
the National been for you so far? The National has been outstanding, The
support that we hit year after year. Every year, I go, this
was the greatest National ever, and then we come to the next one and
it tops it by day two. So it's it's great, all right.
Now speaking to day two, you and I had a conversation the other day,
and you knew coming into this National that you were getting really really close
to that quarter million dollar raised mark since twenty eighteen. Not quarter million at
just this National. Oh yeah yeah. If it were a quarter million at
the National, I'd probably just live here, all right. So I'm like,
we all knew you were getting close. You knew you were getting close,
and something magical happened. Yeah, So it was. It was pretty
wild. I've been talking with the guys that own hobby Box, and um
we had planned they had planned on doing a live stream Tuesday night before the
National opens to help raise money for us, and in talking with them on
Tuesday morning about it, I let them know that we were a shade over
ten thousand dollars from hitting the quarter million mark in total money raised, and
they made it their mission that night to raise that money. So before the
show even opened on Wednesday, we were over a quarter million dollars which in
total money raised, which just and they stayed here until late at night,
yeah, doing auctions. Was it on whatnot? Or was it on whatnotnote?
Specifically to raise money for singings to soldiers and stayed here until they had
enough to hit that quarter million dollar mark. Yep. They spent three hours
at our booth going through everything, doing their doing their flat ah auctions,
um, you know, just pulling stuff and going all right, this is
what it's for, this is what it for, this is what for.
And they were absolutely determined to hit that ten thousand dollars mark. And so
before the show even opened, ten thousand dollars dollars dollars and a quarter million
in total race since we started. That is absolutely insane. Now, along
with Tim, I have got a National Convention rookie, but a guy that
I have known since I was a little kid. So my buddy Ari Shapiro,
who was in town this week, Um, just retired from the Navy
a couple of months ago. After twenty years for a right twenty four Sorry
I forgot about that, and so obviously I wanted to bring you in because
you are freshly retired and you know you heard about Sixtus Soldiers from listening to
the podcast Absolutely, which you heard about because you and I got reconnected,
you know, a year or two ago, you know, through through the
hobby, um, after not really seem to talking to each other for like
twenty five years, you know, so forth. So, UM, I
want to get your impression because you obviously know what Sickny System Soldiers does.
I want to get your you know, your thoughts on like what their work
means to the veteran community. Um, you know, maybe maybe guys that
you they may have done some things to help out guys that you serve with.
So yeah, let's I want to get your thoughts on that, um,
and then we'll kind of roll into internet theirs off. I just want
to say, uh, Tim, thank you so much for what you do.
It's an amazing selfless act. Thanks lot Man. I really appreciate that.
For the bottom of my heart. I also want to thank you Scott
for introducing us and actually being my personal tour guide. My father here at
the biggest collect showing them in the nation. So, um, you know,
to speak about signature for soldiers. Um, it's again it's a selfless
ack by you know what they're doing. And uh, unfortunately we do have
a huge problem with homeless veterans in our country. And um, you know
a guy that's just donating all his money to help those people's amazing. So
um as a veteran especially, Uh, it touches me and us, thanks
again for doing this is great. Yeah, and that's uh, you know
what Tim and I were talking the other day. I knew Ari was coming
out with us on Saturday, and I thought it would be cool to,
you know, have that kind of announcement made about you know, what went
on and what. Um, you know you hit that goal and you know
kind of what you guys are doing for community. Have you know somebody who
is who's freshly civilian? Yeah, um, you know who you know to
come out you know for that. Um. So I know you got goosebumps
every time you tell that story about what happened on the night. I'm sorry
with that happens, you got goosebumps. You still get goosebumps, Uh,
telling the story about what happened on Tuesday night. Oh yeah, that's all.
It's just um because you know, as I've talked about before, when
I started this in twenty fourteen, the goal was five hundred dollars and and
and now, you know, people often ask me, well, you know,
what's it feel like to see it grow like it as? And I
don't think that I have the correct words. I'm not sure. I'm not
sure I can even I'm not sure that there are words really put in to
describe the feeling. I mean, it's it's overwhelming, it's humbling, it's
exciting, it's fun. But you know, I mean, I'm just the
guy, you know. I mean, you know, nine years ago,
you know, most of the folks that are supporting us now would trip over
me in the in the street and have no idea who I was. And
now, you know, just to have to have the hobby community, from
the collectors to the companies to the athletes just supporting we believing in what the
mission is and supporting what I'm doing. And it is truly humbling, it
really really is. I'm I'm just every time I talk about it, I
become speechless. I get the goose bumps that. You know, it's just
again you know, I'm not even important in my own head, you know,
and it's just and here we are, you know, here we are.
You know, this is the fifth National we've been at, the third
year in a row that we've been the charity partner. So we're having the
online auction group Christine going on where one hundred percent of the bids comes back
to us. Um. You know, we we have a boot space.
We've grown exponentially as far as our booth space goes um that that gets donated
every year. So it's just amazing. And you know, year after year,
you know, when we go to the National, you know, for
folks who know what we're doing, they're like, you're the first booth I
come to. You know, you're the first booth I come to to see
what you have and to score at you and just to say hello. And
it's it's great. So every year we come back and we're seeing what and
I now consider kind of my high signatures for soldiers family, and then we're
getting in front of more and more people every year, Hey do you know
who we are? What we do? You know? Here it is and
just raising that awareness about the needs for homeless and disabled veterans. Is it's
a platform I never thought I would have. Well, you've done very well
with it, you know, you're you know, you should be proud of
the work that you've done. Um, proud of the money that you raise,
proud of you know of all the people that you you know, have
helped. And you know, we wish you continued to sess than you know,
Drew and I are always there to support you. Guys. So,
um, I say you are the I want to call you the official charity
of let me get that potograph, but we'll call you the unofficial charity of
let me get that potograph. I mean we can work out a deal to
be the official. Yeah, yeah, we can talk about Yeah, we'll
talk about another time. So but Tim, thank you for you know,
taking a few minutes out to you know, talk about it with us and
are thank you for your service. Thank you for coming out and checking out
your first national So hopefully you have a a good, good experience here in
the next couple hours. Absolutely, thank you very much, guys, appreciate
both of you. Thanks all right, guys, hope you enjoyed that that
was cut in from you know, the National Saturday morning. I got a
chance to sit down with those guys. Amazing story, you know, hitting
that hitting that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars marks since the yeah, and
the way it was done, you know, having one of the breakers from
the room coming look, look, we're gonna get you over this line tonight
and literally just being there for hours going through the boxes of autograph stuff for
their their people on on whatnot and yeah, and you know, raising all
the money. It was an absolutely amazing story. And Mary, look,
maybe we get him to the half million dollar mark. Noh no, not
amaze, We're getting him to the half million dollar mark. And and they're
they're gonna go well beyond that. And Tim. Tim is a wonderful guy
who we are going to have on the show here coming up soon. We've
got a lot of guests from the national coming up in the next couple of
weeks months. M But you know, Tim's first National was Signatures for Soldiers
was my first national. We set up and Stu our co host, he
was very close with Tim. He actually found out about Tim's stuff and helped
him get a booth at his first national, where they literally added an extra
booth and tucked him in the very corner like he was facing a wall almost
because they had no room. But they wanted this charity and this good cause
to be there. They gave him an opening. To see where he has
come in those six nationals is just amazing, because I mean it literally started,
like he said, the first national they went to, I think the
entire weekend overall, they made a little under five thousand dollars, and you
look at him. Six years later, they're crossing two hundred and fifty grand
and going so much stronger. I mean, this is it's an amazing success
story. And Tim and his wife, who I've gotten a chance to meet
his wife a couple of times now too, who is instrumental in signatures for
soldiers. What they have been able to do is nothing short of amazing,
and it is there's honestly not a nicer and better and truly genuine person to
run this company and be a representative for the hobby and for veterans and everybody.
Then Tim, you couldn't pay me enough to say a single bad thing
about this man. A just phenomenal top to bottom. And to see their
rise over the past six years warms my heart makes me happy for the hobby
community. I love when, like you said, the breakers that rallied around
to help them get there, you know, push that stuff that It's just
beautiful, man. I just love seeing it because all of us that kind
of came there in Cleveland that year, six years ago or whatever, it
was all kind of our first national with Clint, Jared, myself, Tim,
all of us. It's meat watching everybody grow and seeing six years later
where all these people are, it's just phenomenal, you know what. It's
funny. I was talking about that with Clint and then his buddy Matt from
Hobbsy Sunday morning. We're just you know, just you know, I've been
there since Clint started Zion Cases, and you know I was. I was
telling them, like, dude, it's been so much fun of like watching
you grow, you know, this company, and like if you had asked
me back then, like people people were saying, like why would anybody want
to carry around a case with all your slabs and things like that? And
now the question is why wouldn't you want to be walking around and carrying around
the Zion cases with your slabs and it you know, the same thing for
signatures for soldiers. And I will say after that interview, Ari and his
dad who was also there, they wanted to grab some of the T shirts
and they, you know, Tim wanted to give them to them because it
was like, you know, I think they were giving them out to all
the veterans and things like yeah that pop by. They both both his dad,
who was an Army veteran, and Ari, he was a Navy veteran,
they basically said no, no, absolutely not, we're buying these.
And I think they I think between the two of them they grabbed like four
or five shirts and Ari was going to bring back a bunch, you know,
for his buddies down in Jacksonville. And I think there were fifteen dollars
a piece if you wanted to buy them. And I saw a couple of
couple of bills with frank with Ben Franklin on him. Yeah, you know,
go over to Tim's wife and they said no change ye, So you
know, like that's the that's the kind of support they're getting and things like
that. And speaking of T shirts, I don't know if you saw Matt
from Ludex walking around, he had a co branded Ludex signatures for Soldiers T
shirt with a huge signatures Soldier's logo on the back. T shirt is actually
made by grunt Style and they decided to put it back on sale again,
with a portion of the proceeds going to Signatures for Soldiers. So if you
go to if you go to grunt style dot com and you search for ludex,
that's gonna be theset way to find at lud x, it's gonna pop
up and you're gonna be able to order the shirt through next week. I
believe. I think it's like twenty five bucks or something like that. I
shared it on Instagram personal, not the photograph one, so you know,
go check that out, and you know, if you need info, you
can buy one of those shirts. They were just absolutely really amazing looking.
Yeah, they were so speaking of let x, yeah this happened, well,
this this happened. This happened in the vip lounge and this is actually
one of the greatest things. So we were in the back room of the
vip Lounge and Brian or Locker is back there. And for those of you
who don't know who Brian is, well you've been hiding under a rock forever.
But you know, uh, Chicago Bears Hall of Fame linebacker like one
of the best ever played the game. He did a video where he was
opening up a pack of Prism Football and you can see the video. I
think let X shared in on their website and or you know, on their
Instagram and things like that. Well, I had Ethan, my son,
with me, and I believe our buddy Cutcomp had given him a pack of
twenty twenty one score football to open. Well, he was sitting behind me
in the chairs. I was talking to Brian and you know in mad At
and the other Brian from Ludex and he opens the pack and all of a
sudden, here, dad, Dad, look what I got. And he
comes running over to me and I turned to look at him and he had
the card held like in the palm of his hand. My arm as I
was turning, hit his palm and it bent the card in half. Oh
no, all right, well no, no, here's the deal. So
it was a Tom Brady Bass card, all right. Financially not a huge
loss. Yeah, However, Ethan was just absolutely devastated. I think it
was. You know, he doesn't rip a lot of football, but I
know he likes Tom Brady. Was the first time Brady card he ever builed,
and like you could see him, like he puts his hand, you
know, puts his head in his hand, like you could tell like he
wants to start crying. Oh yeah, it's the kid holding back the emotion
he wants to exactly. So it turns out that Herlocker, when he was
opening this pack, pulled a and you could see it in the video of
the Ludox posted he pulled a green Hyper Tom Brady to one seventy five.
Okay, And all of a sudden a year ago, Hey man, I'll
tell you what I'm gonna do. I will trade you my Tom Brady for
your Tom Brady. Oh that's awesome, And all of a sudden, yeah,
so he trades Ethan the green Hyper Tom Brady to one seventy five,
which I mean, look, it's a thirty five forty dollars card. Yeah,
for the bent two thousand and one score. That's so great Brady card.
So yeah, so the one that was posted VID, my son is
now in possession of that card. I see that right there. That makes
the card twenty times more valuable for a personal stance, you know what I
mean, Like your son just made a trade with Brian fricking Herlocker, I
know exactly, and it was you know, he actually wound up with the
rest of the cards out of that prison pack that got ripped to n But
but that was like one of those things like holy crap, like did that
really just happen? Only international man, only international? Yeah, I was,
I was a holy crap that I actually turned and he had his card
held in the palms bent, like, oh my god. So fortunately,
yeah, Brian saved the day with that trade, because the rest of the
day would have gone really really bad for me if that you know, if
I know that you giving me plenty of those from time to time, but
Brian R. Lacker never saved a day for no exactly. And it was
just yeah that it was just so much fun to you know, get a
chance to hang out, you know, back there. Um yeah, you
know him, Cassius marsh was back there for a while, to get a
chance to hanging out with him and talk to him. I mean, it's
like I didn't think that we'd be in that situation on Friday. No,
that that's pretty awesome. That's a story I didn't know about until just now.
That's really cool. I know, I intentionally didn't tell you because I
wanted to see your reaction to that. Yeah. No, that's awesome,
man, I mean that's that's one of those things that from someone. I
mean, you know, do you go so many games and stuff like that,
all the stuff that he gets from athletes that are just that they just
mean that much more, you know, do a kid just like they do
to us. I mean, like if I had gotten a car and traded
to me from fricking Brian or Lacker, you better believe it's going on this
shelf right behind me and you're gonna see it forever. Like oh and then
yeah, that's never going to be for sale. Um no, you know
that. Yeah, that's not a big deal. So that was one there
is. Now before we go, we got one last topic that we haven't
covered this week that is always a popular thing to talk about that. Um,
you've got some inside info on and we we have to cover it.
Um. And that's the Panini party on Saturday night. Yeah, so I
was not there. You were not there, however, Yeah, purposefully you
could have gone. Um however, you know, and I know a bunch
people that were there that night. Oh yes, So what did you hear?
All right? Well, nine my team went. I had a ticket,
but I gave my ticket up to another team member, and I will
tell you why I gave it up. As they were making a couple of
announcements that they did, they announced that Diplo would be djaying there. I
immediately knew that was not the party for me. As a second I saw
Diplo, I'm out, No, I'm good. I don't need it.
I don't need music so loud, I can't talk. I'm fine, Just
stay away. Now. Had Andre three thousand been with Big Boy, I
would have been pissed. But let's face it wasn't really outcast that was there.
So I don't give a fuck. But this from everyone I talked to.
My god was as bad. It's gotten worse every year, and we
talked about it on the show, our pre NSCC show. There were not
going to be any gold packs, so there was literally no wax at this
party. Broken. Now, if you've been to any Panini party over the
last six years, you know that that was what ninety percent of the people
at that party did. They opened cards. There was zero wax on the
entire floor. There wasn't a card saver. There wasn't anything on the floor
in terms of actually opening cards, having anything to do with cards. Secondly,
they didn't announce any of the guests outside of two and Diplo before the
show started, so there was no hyper guarding that. The guests were incredibly
underwhelming in my opinion. And then four of the guests were underage children that
had signed NIL deals through basketball or some of their NIL basketball players that were
there with their parents at a party that was meant for drinking, and the
parents got quite intoxicated and you could see some of the kids they're not happy
to be there. But in addition to that, there was no area set
up to actually take photos with the celebrities like before they had, you know,
the Panini wall behind you where you take a photo. There was no
photo op area. Ed Reid walked into the party, obviously we had hung
out with him two nights before he saw them. He was ushered straight into
a back room, never to be seen again. The athletes were not on
the floor interacting with people. It was everything that I heard, but it
was just a complete and total mess. It was an excuse for people to
get hammered, which a lot of people did the bathrooms had lots of residue
encounters from what I was told, lots of people sniffling. It was a
interesting party, so to speak. But everybody that I talked to, outside
of a few people that might still like to go to clubs, that this
was basically just a night out at the club. It was. It was
not a Panini party. And we you know, we mentioned it last week.
This is the time when you want the attention on you. Yet you
had the arch Manning reveal. Yet I got some attention on you. But
that Panini Party is your chance to really shine. And I'll tell you,
man, just from talking to everyone that went to it, my entire team,
other people that went from all age groups, from people that were in
their twenties and their sixties, that all went to it. Oh, I
didn't hear anyone say that this was the type of party that they wanted.
And it's kind of disappointing. And I hope that not how the Panini Party
goes in the future. But a really really rough event this year from what
and I will say, we talked about the gold Packs and them not being
there in the pre national show and they are being mailed out this week to
people by the way, well, right, but what you know, but
what he initially said was that you know, they were worried about theft.
Yeah, and okay, great. But now what I'm thinking was that was
an excuse. And I'm thinking they delayed them because they knew that the arch
Manning signing yeah was coming. And I would not be surprised if they just
couldn't get them produced in time to hand out there. And I mean,
we'll find out once people receive them and they start ripping them, because if
we see arch Manning cards in there, yeah, then you know we are
then we're going to know that I was right. Well, I'm wondering if
we don't see that color blast that was posted on the wall, I wonder
if that's not something included. I mean, gold packs have all types of
different stuff in them. You know, there's no there's no rules or so
to speak, you know, pre wreck that they need to follow for these.
They can put anything they want in them. Yes, over packs this
year had the Wemby you know, that was a surprise that's going for like
fifteen hundred two grand or something like that. Now, So and that one's
why. That explains why the silver pack cost on the secondary market is so
high. Oh yes, is because of that Wemby. But there was another
party on Saturday nights at the same time as the Panini party that blowout decided
to throw. Yeah, and this one, this one, you kind of
knew what you were getting into at this point because what they did was they
rented out this massive bus and they parked it about two miles from the convention
center, and it had a whole bunch of people loaded onto this bus.
And they had one celebrity and it was it was Ricky Williams. Hell yeah.
And the appeal to this party was that you got to smoke pot with
Ricky Williams. Damn straight. Now, here's the thing. You didn't hear
a lot about this. You didn't see a lot of promotion on social media,
which is smart because if that's the case, a lot of people were
getting randomly drug tested on Monday when they got back to work. Yeah.
Um, but a friend of ours who I will not name, was there.
Ricky Williams walked right over to where they were sitting on the bus and
plopped down next to them and literally spent the entire night hanging out with them.
And you know, smoking weed and you know, Madden was a lot
of us. He played Madden with a couple buddies of mine. Yeah yeah,
and um, I mean, look, it's exactly what you'd expect from
Ricky Williams. Yes, So this this was not a disappoint ointment. Uh
No. Everyone I talked to that went to that said it was a blast,
um and breaky actually because they were. It's probably because they were baked
out of their mind and realized that it, you know, might not have
been a blast, you know, when you're reading that much too. Um.
He was over at the Sick Cards booth with dirkey Ye for a while.
I mean he actually a lot of people actually hit the floor for a
while. Um, it was cool. Yeah, I mean Barry Sanders was
out there doing a kid's break at the Panini booth. I actually I walked
past him as he was on his way over to the booth to do that.
Um, I got you know, I got stiff armed by one of
his guys walking around and just getting out of the way. So it's like,
all right, cool, I got stiff armed by one of Barry Sanders's
guys. Would have been cooler to get stiff armed by Barry Sanders himself,
right, But you know I'll take it. Yeah, I'm not going to
complain. But we got Cleveland coming up next year. I'm looking forward to
Cleveland. I'm not looking forward to the new layout of the show floor.
But what I will say is this is the first time back in Cleveland since
twenty eighteen, due to the cancelation last year of Cleveland because the Convention Center
was no longer available. But Cleveland, the National Cleveland is always a good
time. And we have twelve months now to try to figure out what the
big announcements are going to be. Yeah, you know, who's going to
show up, what the show is going to look like, well, especially
what the show is gonna look like because it's under new management now. I
mean, this was the swan song for the old management, the people who
have run the National forever. I mean this was their swan seventeen years,
seventeen years. Yeah, So this is new. This is a new board
of directors, this is a new everything. Well, no board of directors.
The board of directors is the same, it's the yeah, yeah,
just the management. And I had a chance to talk with a couple of
the is that are part of the new management team, and I am really
looking forward to what they're going to wind up doing with this. There is
some I you know, there's some very positive things and positive vibes. The
new management team is made up of guys, one who have a lot of
experience running shows, yes, but two are collectors themselves. Oh yeah,
and that's the most important part. Yeah, So I agree, I agree,
it's going to be interesting to see what happens. But I will say,
you know, for a group that was a quote unquote their swan song
leaving, they could have they could have phoned it in they yeah, they
could have said whatever, we had a good run, all right, we're
done, etc. Instead, in my opinion, they made this one of
the best nationals yet. I mean, my first is always going to be
one of my favorites. Yeah, when it comes down to really breaking down
everything from you know, the event inside to how the food everything out,
I mean that it was phenomenal, just an absolutely incredible national And I don't
think you're gonna find many people that would disagree. I would not disagree.
Yeah, well, there you go, not in the least bit. There
you go. So and on that note, that is going to wrap up
our review show of for the twenty twenty three National in Chicago. Yes,
absolutely, guys. We will have, like Scott said, a lot of
upcoming guests and things from the National. Once again, want to thank Tim
from Signatures for Soldiers for taking time to do that interview that we had for
you guys today. It was Scott and Ari on the floor. But we've
got a lot of amazing stuff coming up, and like Scott kind of tease
a little bit earlier, next week, we will start having every episode of
the show not only on audio like you're listening to right now, but it
will be up on our YouTube page as well, the videos of every single
show. But they're gonna be a little bit different then the episodes that you
hear on the podcast, as we're not cutting a single thing, so any
outtakes anything like that, you guys get to see him. Whether that's good
or bad, we'll find out sooner or later, you guys. Yeah,
you guys will get to see how the sausage is made. Um, you'll
get to see the pre edited stuff kind of as we go. You'll get
to see some some outtakes and you know, things that are not going to
appear in the audio segment here, you'll be able to see on the video
side of things. You know, it's kind of gonna be a not only
the you know, the weekly show itself, but it's also going to be
a behind the scenes, yes, you know kind of kind of thing.
So you know, you'll get to see, you know, we may talk
about some things in between segments. We may you know, we may say
add and like the way that sounded, let's go do that again, and
um, it's gonna be something completely different than you know what you see.
It's gonna be. I don't want to say it's gonna be unrefined, because
it's it's still very refined, yes, but it's it's gonna be it's raw,
it's gonna be you know, things as we do it. And I
think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Oh me too, doing it
that way. And I think I think some of those outtakes that you know,
we may have some people that wind up taking those clips and you know,
kind of running with us somewhere else, like can you believe what these
guys say, you know dad, or say you know, um, but
look it's look, it's what it is. M comes with the territory.
Yeah, it comes with the territory. So we'll um, we'll be starting
the next week when I'm back at home, yep, and we'll see what
happens with it. Yeah, looking forward to that, guys. And we've
got a lot of other really cool stuff, some stuff that we hammered down
at the National and some stuff that we're finalizing now that hopefully we can bring
you guys really really soon. But as Scott said, that is gonna wrap
up episode one ninety three of Let Me Give That Potograph our post National episode
Let the Bank are awesome sponsors Denver Card Shows, Show Your Slabs, Slabs,
Drong, stand Up Displays, Card Ladder, Treasure Hunter, Sports Cards,
Game Time Cards, and Zion Cass. Thank you guys so much for
everything. We could not do this show without you, guys. But like
I said, tons of amazing guests coming up in the next few weeks.
Stuff will be on YouTube next week. We'll have a lot of stuff up
on Socials this week from the National and more a lot of stuff you guys
have not heard yet will be coming your way, including a rather large National
recap video that I'm in the process of editing as we speak. But until
next week. Guys, you know the deal. Keep it from those packs.
We'll those hits, we'll taught via then