Speaker 1: All right, welcome to episode three sixteen of Hobby Hotline.
Good Saturday Morning. We missed last week. These are some
technical stuff, so glad to be back. Our apologies for
the one week hiatus, but gave us another week to
see some of the hobby news and whatnot. So joining
me on this week's episode to my top right, mister
stale gum Chris Hare from the one.
Speaker 2: It's episode three sixteen, so everybody out there give me
a hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And I had to be on with the with the
first name of John, so uh, you know it works
out there, and making his Hobby Hotline debut was supposed
to be last week, so it's a week late. His
rookie appearance, his rookie card, Hobby Hotline Orlando a Collector's Dream.
Welcome from Florida.
Speaker 3: Thank you John, Thank you Chris, and great to be on,
especially on sixteen, episode three sixteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3: And uh, as you can see, I'm in the car
out of town. So I tried to find that's dedication.
Speaker 1: That all that is Orlando's dedication and perseverance, and it's
you know, you're not You're not. We've we've had people
record from the car. So that's not a first. It
just shows that you're dedicated and didn't want to appreciate that.
A couple of good mornings before we get into our
first cut topic. Uh Man City Brew, Uh, Mookie chilsen
Abe and Vegas bile Ball, Frank Giastella, Rubin, Mike Petty, Uh,
just George uh and uh yeah that's that's you know,
it's the ones that said hello, and anyone else out
there maybe didn't type of comment good morning. Uh. As well,
let's get into the first topic, right, and this has
been a big thing. It's always it's it's not a
new thing, but it's sort of made got more attention guys.
You know these card bounties recently that tops now triple
uh the one to one, the triple auto.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Nate Burns from Gland Slam put a million dollar bounty
and had a five on. It becomes almost an auction
with these bounties, right. Uh, someone will offer something, someone
will come over the top. So someone had previously offered
uh five hundred thousand uh and then Nate from Grand
Slam offered a million dollars. You know, it's nice, I
guess to have that kind of money and and you know,
be able to spend it and acquire a card of significance. Yeah,
I'm not faulting anyone for that, but obviously some of
it is an attention grab. You know. I don't think
it's bad. I don't. I also don't think it's really
good necessarily. I think it is what it is. Your
guys thoughts. I know, I know Chris too. I'm gonna
go I'm gonna acquss the Chris because I know legally,
you know, he works in the government. I can't say everything,
but but he might have something, you know, to a
different layer to this, to kind of elaborate on. But
go ahead, Chris.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to bring this topic up. This This
is gonna be a bit of a preview of my
column for Hobby News Daily, which should be dropping any
day now. But we've seen a lot of these bounties.
Ever since the dawn of the insert card about thirty
years ago. The Hobby's been skating on this edge of
whether or not opening up a pack of cards constitutes
something of a raffle or a lottery. And if you
notice on the back of a pack wrapper or a box,
there's a lot of Weasley Legalese that says things like,
you know, in fact, I have a twenty twenty four
Tops factory set here and it says in small type,
and you'll not find this on just about every TOPS
wrapper or box. Tops does not in any manner make
any representations as to whether its cards will attain any
future value. And you know that's there to Cya, you know.
But now you have these group breakers online, wax dealers,
hobby shops, many of whom have direct relationships with Tops,
that are offering these almost ridiculous bounties. Now where is
this even now legal? Because even though Tops is not
making any statement as to whether their cards are valuable,
someone else is, someone with a business relationship to Tops,
is now offering a lot of money for some of
these cards. So that's my question to the hog hobby.
Are these bounties now even legal anymore?
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I get it, you know, a couple of
comments said about it definitely drives the prices up, right.
I think we saw how many copies, you know, going
back to that that Olympic try card with Durant Curry
and James, right, we've seen how many of those wound
up being sold. Those were print to demand. So the
odds of you buying some of those or ordering over
half of yeah, getting that one on one are are
are astronomical or very long odds. But like you know,
there's a lot of the galleys, right, I guess if
you if you get that card, you're glad there's a
million dollar bounty on it because if you want to
sell it, right, but again, you don't have to sell it,
and you don't have to sell it to who's offering
the bounty. You could put it on an auction house,
you know, you get give it the heritage and see
what it goes there, or tell the person offering the bounty, Hey,
I'm not just gonna give it to you. If you
want to bid up to a million dollars, here's where
it's going to be auctioned off. And uh, you know,
it's just it's it's you know, someone has been in
a hobby forty years.
Speaker 3: This is it's gambling. I mean that's what it is.
But I really think, I mean about the legality of it.
I think it has to be legal. I mean, this
is an individual that's looking for a card and is
willing to put a bounty on it. If I was
looking for a particular Let's say I'm looking for a
good Win Champions this particular card in A seven, and
there's only one out there, I could put a bounty
out there and say, hey, I'll pay so much for
that card if you've got it, knowing there's one one
of them out there, any rare card. So I don't know.
I think, you know, it's got to be legal, but
is it ethical?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not an attorney. I'm just thinking, you know,
as a personal person, I want that card. I want
it for a million dollars. If you get it, I'll
pay it. You know. That's that's what it is now.
I think personally it's a brilliant move what Fanatics is
doing and the other guys are doing. And I think
whether it's in conjunction with Jeff Wilson or Golden.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, this is a this is comment from from
Rex that you know, you know, tops slash Fanatics kind
of teamed up with Jeff Wilson on the bounty that
I don't like, right, because it's their product, they almost
should stay out of it and let let the people
who are often the offering the bounties do it on
their own accord, right, you know, Jeff Rex is saying
it's a it's a conflict of interest, and I kind
of agree, Like TOMPs has mate the card, Tops has
made the card. Get out of the way. Let the
market whatever that market is. Kind of bear what that
card is going to go for. But don't have your
hand in the same till you're you're taking from.
Speaker 3: I agree, But as a business move, if it was
your business and you're thinking, look at how I could
promote my products, because I think it's a brilliant way
to promote your products. I mean, look how many people
are going out there and how much national attention they've
gotten for that one of them. And I don't know
if you know, but recently the one of one gold
version unsigned one was pulled and it was pulled by
an eight year old kid. I saw it immediately, he
sent it over to Golden you know. Yeah, it's it's
a lot of it's a lot of retake. But I
really think as far as fanatics and what TOPS is doing,
I think it's brilliant marketing.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I won't argue that Orlando, I think it is.
But they would still get they would still get that
marketing without them like being in conjunction, like the bounties
itself are drawing attention to the product. So I don't
want to, you know, if it's up to me, in
my two cents, I don't want to see Tops infinet
slash Fanatics like set the bounties up or be in
conjunction or a co op with them. Let them. The
bounties are going to happen, whether Tops wants it to
happen or doesn't want.
Speaker 3: It to happen, right, those are that's the that's the
concern John. When you have a monopoly basically other than panin,
I mean, you almost have a monopoly. They're controlling not
only their product distribution, but they're controlling who's breaking it,
where they're going to break it, you know, stuff like that.
And yeah, I'm not a fan of that, but that
that's what Fanatics has done. They've controlled the market, and uh,
you know it's up to us assumers to decide what
are we going to do, you know, And I think
that's that's where are we going to go after those
type of products and after those hits. But also remember
tell they're gonna hurt themselves too. Once that one of
one super fractor gets pulled from that product. The values
just shoot right down on those products.
Speaker 1: Yeah, comment from rookie here. You know Tops wants the
bounties they have and they take all the profit from
distributed distribution on demand. You know, Tops just made a
loan on the sale of this card. We're talking about
seven million dollars on one card. It's not even you know,
a box or a five hundred card set or three
hundred cards that it was one card. Now there are
variations in different sps and super short prints, so it's
not necessarily one card, but it's not a full release
product like a box like Chris sort of held up,
or a set like that, and uh, you know, and
I get it. And listen, we talk about it being gambling,
whether we like it or not. Right, isn't the hobby
in a sense, especially if you're opening wat because like
Chris said, he read the odds on the back. The
odds are there, right, it's in the form of gambling.
I mean, the only time I think the hobby's not
gambling is when you just buy a card out right,
you go to a show. Somebody can make an argument
that that's you know, you're you're gambling on the future
value of that it will it remain the same go up,
go down. You're taking a chance there, but on a
really lesser scale, let's put it that way than buying,
you know, a box for three, four or even five
figures to rip open and right, here's the other and
that makes me nervous. Something we you know, I'm sure
it's been talked about with with you know, great comment
from Ruben. Life is a gamble, right, Uh, I'm I'm
with I'm with Jason here too. The consumer will stick.
I'm a vintage guy. I don't open too much new wax.
I know you're the same, Orlando. So technically this doesn't
directly affect me. But as someone who's been in the
hobby a long time and a content creator and a writer, right,
we have to I kind of like and enjoy talking
about current topics.
Speaker 3: But yeah, go ahead, sorry person, that wasn't marketing to
my life. You know, if a marketing tactic works, you
will continue that until it stops working. And what they're
gonna do now is every product that comes out the hit,
the big hit is gonna have a bounty. You can
see it already happening. And it's just gonna happen with
all the products fanatics and tops are gonna come out with,
you know, because what they want they want people to
hurry up, buy it, quickly, open the packs, open the
box as fast as you can so we can get
another product out there. You know, because once they put
a new product out, that old product becomes stale. So
they want to open those packs as fast as possible.
That's why breaking has become so big, and it's part
of their whole marketing plan, and they're going to continue.
Every single product that comes out the big hit is
going to have a bounty. Believe, whether it's golden, whoever
it is, blowout, I'm going to put a bounty on
that stuff from now on until the until we the
consumer kind of gets tired of it and says, hey,
I'm not going to go for those bounties anymore, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, where were these bounties when I was opening
Triple Play back in the day. That's what I want
to know. I could have sold my manly for two
bucks on a bounty, but obviously I can't. The other thing,
And I'm sure it's been discussed, not on this particular show,
but you know, I'm sure you heard about the cat
scan deal. I'm not an expert on it, but you know, uh,
there reports that certain products like your Flawless National Treasures,
with a cat scan you can see what kind of
hits are in there without opening it, right, and now
when you factor the bounties, right, I mean that's this
is just a you know, number one, that's illegal to
do that. Obviously, I don't condone that. I don't think
there's a way to tell. What I like to see
is these companies Light Tops, Panini, although Panini's gonna be
losing their licensing here shortly Orlando. With this cat scan issue,
which we're kind of segueing in off of this, is
make these products where that cat scan can't do any
especially if there's gonna be these bounties. And even without
the bounties, a product like Wlawless or National Treasures is
a very expensive product. Right Do I want to store?
Do I want to go to my store and pluck
down four or five figures with the chance that they
already ran after a cat scan machine and know that
that box is not that great in relative activity to
some of the others they scan.
Speaker 3: You know, they got to do is put like a
foil on top and bottom, you know, around all the products.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm there's gonna be I'm sure there's a way.
You know, someone said lead, but leads is gonna be
expensive and heavy. But there's got to be another way there.
Speaker 3: If there's some type of foil or something they can
put there so the cat scan kind of can't go
through it. There has to be a way to do
it there. If they don't have problem, that's gonna be,
that's gonna hurt their sales because who's gonna want to
buy boxes that could be especially on eBay, you know
that's where they're gonna scan them and they'll put them
on eBay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt. Uh. And and the other thing too
is again going back. I don't want and I don't
want to pick up just tops. I don't want any
card manufacture involved in the bounty itself. Let the bounties
fall where they're gonna fall. Let the people who are
going to offer that money, you know. You know, Chris
talked about some of the legal ramifications Orlando. What are
the legal ramifications. I don't know if there are any.
I don't know if we have any lawyers. What if
I offered a million dollars, right, what are you.
Speaker 3: Going to sue for? I mean, that's what well.
Speaker 1: I just took a long contract I just took. But
there is there are some laws where if you if
let me give me a scenario, I offer a million
dollars for a card whatever, it doesn't matter. I said,
you know card X, Oleana, you get card X, however,
you get it, you open something, pull it, you acquire it,
and you say, okay, John, here it is. I want
my million dollars. And then I say to you, hey, no,
I'm not paying it now. Right. You know there's some
legals ground there too, with with verbal contracts and verbal
when you put that out there. Let's even change that scenario.
You don't you know I'm paying a million dollars. You know,
the person who got it, and they're not aware of
the bounty. And you say to them, hey, I'll give
you four hundred grand and they say, oh, man, all right,
you paid a four hundred grand with the premise. Now
I'm going to turn around and sell this to John.
He's offering a million dollars. And then I say to you,
you know what, I changed my mind. And now technically
you're out, you know, I mean out in their quotes, right,
four hundred K. You know there's some legal yeah, just
Chris Wall maybe what Chris was touching on, I know
he's not screening at.
Speaker 3: I would see John Ware. There's some legal issues if
they don't pay the bounty. But if you know, if
I go and buy a buy a card from you
and sell it for twice the price because you gave
me a better, you know, a deal you didn't know
the full value, there's nothing you can do on that.
But as far as if somebody does not pay the bounty,
I don't think there's anything you can do because there's
no legal writing. It's just verbal there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there is. Again I'm not a lawyer, but.
Speaker 3: I'm just sense I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a verbal contract where if you put
out there like competence, I'm going to do this for this,
and then you don't live up to that, somebody Again,
you get into a courtroom, right, it's you can win,
you can lose. But I think you have a case.
I think there's some legal precedent that if you offer
in a sense of service or monetary payment for specific
item and that person has the item, and plans to
deliver it, and then you sort of reneg on that.
I think there's some legal record.
Speaker 3: Now and if you're a blowout site there at the
headline also has to be legally binding because you're physically
putting it out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, and here's the thing, like I
don't have a million dollars, right, but what if I
just said, hey, Nate Burns, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna
raise your dollar and I'm gonna be a million and
one for that, uh you know, uh, like it's just
something you know, Mike Petty and who's always great with
the common so he's gonna stall start a bounty channel.
But that's where we're you know, it's gonna be competitive
on on a bounty on you know, with bounties, like
people are gonna you know, and maybe it even created
some friction and animosity and and you know remorse or
you know, someone sells it for a bounty and someone
else says, hey, you know I would have gave that,
or you didn't see it. It's just such a new,
you know, a fairly new part of the hobby of
terrain like we've never seen before. And again, you know, who.
Speaker 3: Knew, John, who who were gonna be a million dollar
cards ont a pack? You know before when we pulled
cards even you know who, they weren't worth that much money.
You're not talking, you know, six figure cards. And I
think that is what's driving all this bounty stuff. Is
it good or bad for the hobby? I think it's
good bad. You know, that's the way I'm looking at it.
It's good.
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree.
Speaker 3: I build them, yeah, the way that it's building the
hot if you can.
Speaker 1: And listen, I always look at the kids and I
you know, I've been told like sometimes you do that
too much, John, But I started as a seven year
old kid, you know whatever. You're a kid and you
like spend your whole you know, you spend one hundred
bucks going back to this tops now right to hey,
maybe I'll get this one on one and I'll sell
it for a million bucks, right you? And that's how
kids minds were, That's how a dope minds work. Right.
So you're that kid who spends as whole hundred dollars
he saved up for who knows how long? You get
your tops now cards, you rip them open. That one
on one's not in there and it becomes sort of
a bad experience, right. You feel like it's like opening
up the Willie Wakap bar right looking for the golden
ticket and it's not in there, and all you're left
with is like, hey, I'm just a bunch of chocolate. Right.
Speaker 3: Well, overall, that's my problem with boxesn't breaking. I mean,
you know, a kid will spend a couple hundred dollars
on a box lucky if they pull thirty dollars with
the cards. So I think overall that's that's the bigger problem.
I think with the hobby. I think that if you
could get a decent return by opening boxes, even if
you lose half your money, but most of the time
you lose eighty percent of it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: I think if they would put more hits in the
products and make it a little bit easier to get
hits or better better buy, I think that would help
the hobby and help the kids. But you know what,
they're gonna produce more, They're gonna print more as much
as they can. Unfortunately, I think we're going down the
junk wax era route.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean, you know it's I looked, you know,
I don't open that much wax anymore, if at all.
I mean I do dabble a little bit, but nothing
like I used to. So again it doesn't affect. But
here's the other thing with the bounties too. We've heard reports, right,
and allegations that Tops is feeding hot boxes to breakers
and certain people that they're aware of. Now, obviously they've
denied this Orlando, they're not saying they know. They're like, yeah,
it's all. But let's let's just operate on the hypothetical
that that that is true, that they do know right now,
this bounties, how do we know they're not feeding uh
you know, backyard breaks or David Adams a box that
they know that they bounty cards in, so you know,
the bounties that that person can reap the rewards, right,
and what if they buy a lot from Tops, like, hey,
you spend one hundreds of thousand dollars with us. Here,
we're gonna we're gonna you know, you scratched our back,
We're gonna scratch yours. It's in here, sell it for
the bounty and boom, you're you're golden, right.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, And that that comes in getting you believe
that you know, if you want to go that far.
I mean, some people believe that they're giving boxes to
some certain celebrities or or baseball players to pull out
their own cards, signed cards, things like that. Who knows what.
I'm just thinking that they want to pull the big
hits from their fanatics. Breaker, you know, That's what I'm thinking.
And uh, you know that's a concern if they're doing
any of that. But you can't prove that. How are
you going to ever prove something like that? Yeah, I
don't know.
Speaker 1: We're kind of yeah, all right, hey, uh you know, Chris,
we're kind of we're coming to the tail end of
this particular topic and any anything. You know, I talked
about the legal you mentioned the legal HEAs I brought
up while you were gone. Let's say I offer a
million dollar bounty. You you acquire the card, pull the card, however,
you have pain, and you say, okay, John, I'm ready
for my million dollars. Here's the card you're paying a
million dollars for. And then I say, oh, never mind,
I changed my mind. You know there's some legal there,
there's you know, there's that's fraud. Yeah, So I think
when you advertise that you're paid especially for a particular card.
If you just say, hey, I'm paying one thousand dollars
for you know, a really decent looking Sandy Kofax rookie.
Speaker 2: You know, that's one that that's different. Though we're talking
I'm talking about new cards, right, yeah, new packs, new products.
Where you have to spend money to buy a pack
or a card off a website and someone else puts
a bounty out and that someone else has a direct
relationship with the company that issued it.
Speaker 3: That's a problem.
Speaker 2: That's a problem. And another problem is and this is
kind of tangentially related to.
Speaker 1: This, you know.
Speaker 2: I read the legalese on the back of this TOPS
complete set, and if you look at Tops's social media
accounts lately, it's just look at this one of one
that was just pulled. Look at Ellie d la Cruz.
He didn't know how much his card was worth. But
you could pull a half a million dollar card too.
And they're kind of skating on that thin ice of
you know, saying that your cards won't hold any value,
but then using the value of those cards to promote
your product. I don't think that's right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, talking out of both side your mouth.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: And it's telling that all of this seems to have
started to happen when a certain guy in Jacksonville with
a white party every fourth of July got involved in
the hobby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's saying, well, he's a master market tier. Let's
give credit where credit is due. I'm not a huge
fan of the person, but he's smart, he knows what
he's doing, and he's marketing.
Speaker 3: He's, like I said before, brilliant mark not only marketing
the product, but he markets himself with those white parties
and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, guys, let's move on to our next topic,
which you know is not contro bro I mean maybe
a little bit. Right backdating products COVID happened, stuff was delayed,
shipping containers were stuck on vessels, and shipping units not
to be delivered. So, for example, Upper Deck the Cup,
one of their high end upper decks, high end hockey
releases recently just came out. But the twenty twenty two splash,
twenty twenty three Upper Deck the Cup, and where we're
just you know, you know, three months away from twenty
twenty five, and we have a twenty twenty two twenty
three product coming out. It's just weird to me that
that could even happen. I get it. They're not gonna
not do it, guys, because there's too much they'd lose
too much money they paid for these licensing. They're not
gonna not release a Very rarely they do sometimes cancel
a product, but it's pretty rare. It's just weird that
you're almost in twenty twenty five and you could be
potentially opening the box that's new that says twenty twenty
two to twenty three on it. Well, you know, thoughts
on that.
Speaker 3: Poor what they won't oh goodhead, good, right, Well, you
know again, poor planning, not having the printing time beforehand,
things like that. You know, when you're in the printing business,
it takes a lot and effort pull a product out,
design work, to get everything done and all of that.
That takes months and months and months just to get
it all done, get all every card done, and get
it ready to go to press, and then you don't
have printing capacity to do it. I mean, that's what
the issue really comes down to. Whether it's that Fanatics
has controlled the printing because there's only a few printers
in this country that can print the cards. You know,
it's not like you can just find a new printer.
And these are, you know, multi million dollar printer printing plants.
So you I mean, as a card manufacturer, if you
don't have that printing time locked in, whether you need
two weeks or a month to print that product, if
you don't have that ahead of time, I mean, you know,
it's just ridiculous that you go through all that work
to get it done and then all of a sudden
it's ready to print. You gotta wait. You can't print it.
There's other products, newer product being printed ahead of your product. Now,
whether that's something that Fanatics has done to hurt them
or whatever, I don't know. It could be, but I
think it's just very poor management on their part not
make make sure that product comes to market on time.
I mean, that's your job. Get the product done and
to market on time. And if you can't do it,
forget it. It's like having a gallon of milk that's outdated. Ridiculous.
That's that's my rant on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I understand that upper Deck the cup is
a product that takes a very very, very very long
time for them to develop, and I understand that they're
kind of they're still backdated on that due to COVID
from a year from years ago. But sometimes you just
got to bite the bullet and just say we're not
going to release the Cup this year, or this year's
Cup is actually going to be dated twenty twenty four,
twenty five, yeah, and skip a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The reason why I brought this issue up is because
in the last month or so, Tops has released two
football products, Composite and Motif. I think Motif comes out
this week or may have been already, I don't know.
Neither one is licensed by the NFL, and neither one
is licensed by the Players Association, although they did sign
those four quarterbacks from last year's draft class CJ. Anthony
richardson those guys. And here we are, Week one of
the NFL season is in the books, and they have
the audacity to call this a twenty twenty three product.
I mean, even if this were fully licensed, you're not
fooling anybody, dude, Just call it a twenty twenty four product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the season and a rookie logo on it in
his he's in what.
Speaker 2: Which is not? Nobody's going to take that card as
seriously as or should oh and Pennin he's also releasing
twenty twenty three football around. I think they just really select.
Speaker 1: Yeah football, Like many in the chat room are pointing
out a year behind, A year behind. I get, but
you know, like we're really in the obviously the post COVID.
I know people are still getting it, but we're not
in the pandemic portion.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see again. It's gonna cost some money,
but they're making plenty of money, right. I like to
see these car manufacturers be like like Orlando kind of
hinted at it, right, have their own printing facilities and
be directly responsible for getting it done right. Put the
owners back on the company themselves rather than a third
party printing company. You know, these printing companies which is
on is printing rival company stuff sometimes probably at the
same time. We're in different ships, right, and Pinia are
being printed in the same four walls. Hey, that's crazy
to me. And like you said, there's there's reports that
Fanatics has has finagled stuff and screwed Panini for lack
of a better way of saying it, right, but they've
had to cancel a football product three four times because
they can't get it to press that if you're printing
your own products, that should that wouldn't happen or shouldn't happen. Uh.
You know again that would be putting investing money into
a plant, a building. Uh. But you're they're also paying
that company who knows how much, probably handsomely so Bill Garrol.
You know, especially in Fanatics case. Many they have the cash.
Speaker 3: That's the problem. That Fanatics had cash. And so if
Fanatics printers say, hey, we'll give you thirty more to
the side and prints first.
Speaker 2: Didn't Fanatics just buy that printing press outside of Dallas
got did?
Speaker 3: I know that they were, they were trying to buy it,
but I'm not sure they actually bought it it. I
know they made a one offer, but maybe we could
look that up and figure that out.
Speaker 1: I hope. I hope Fanatics winds up getting their own printing,
full time printing facility. I know Panini's about to lose
a good percentage of their licensing. But then let them
do what they're gonna do with it where where there's
no conflict of interest. There with where both both companies
and products are getting printed in the same facility. Right
that old Limp should eliminate that. Let Pernini survive in
its own small way with the nil and whatever products
you know that they're gonna be able to make.
Speaker 3: I mean, is more of a international company and a
lot of soccer stuff out there. Maybe they could find
some printers out in Europe because they print a lot
of their stickers and all that stuff out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then that, you know, if it's a product
that's got going to come to the States, yeah, you know,
and that's got to go oversea, and we all hear
the Harvard stories about cargo ships kind of stuck or
running in the bridges and Danny's hometown of Botemore and
that kort of thing. So yeah, it's crazy, you know.
And with this cup, right, I think it was able
in Vegas made a comment right here, you got double
rookie cards now to catch up. It's sort of an
advantage and disadvantage, right, you kind of know ahead of
time what rookie performed well and what rookie didn't. And
it's also a disadvantage because for a store right that
would have had that product maybe on time where they
could have sold some of those Rookie cards or prospects
before they people kind of the verdict was in or
out on them right now, that chance maybe you know,
not there like it would be on a normal time schedule.
Or maybe make a product, you know, Chris Chris said
about just just call it twenty twenty five. Maybe make
it a bigger set. Yeah, maybe make the previous cards
almost like parallels or a subset of you can.
Speaker 3: Do series one and then or something like that. There's
gotta be a way to figure that out. But to
release a three year old product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, one year doesn't bother me too much.
But when you're in almost twenty twenty five opening a
product that's labeled twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, and
what's gonna happen now is where Wednesday twenty twenty three,
twenty four Cup come out? On the twenty four to
twenty five Cup come out? Like how close together? Are
they always gonna be? Like, you know, three years but
two and a half years behind, Like where, you know,
when do we catch up and get products like we
used to be accustomed to, right, And you know, so
I don't know, not a big fan of backdaty, I
get why, but we're also a few years out from
that that those bad pandemic year and a half two years.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, there shouldn't be any more delays.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, this is a topic you brought to
it's a hot button topic or no, but.
Speaker 3: It's my topic. Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, grading viewed as a scam. We got
about twenty twenty five minutes level. We'll probably close with this.
I notice we'll get a lot of comments in the
chat room. I'm a Bolk suburb for SGC. I buy
SGC and PSA graded cards. I subb the PSA as
well as SGC. You know, in the nineties when I
had my store, I thought grading was a money grab
and I didn't do it. It still is probably a
money grab. I don't think that maybe has changed, But
obviously I partake in it on both sides, right, as
a suburb, as a buyer of cards, as a seller
of graded cards, I buy row cards too. It's not
like it's just graded, you know. But you know, obviously
the grading itself is subjective. We've seen these companies, you know.
It seems like every few weeks something comes out. They
graded something as authentic that turns out not to be,
or vice versa. You know, We've had people who say, hey,
I pulled this card out of a pack, and they're
saying it doesn't meet minimum size. It works kind of
both ways. I had a third year Michael Jordan that
that I subbed probably two years ago, came back is
minimum size, not Matt. I know, I pulled it out
of a pack. I sent it back, I took another flyer,
sent it back and it got graded and ate right right.
So that those are.
Speaker 3: Those are my issues. I mean, I'm not necessarily saying
that it's a total scam. I think it's more of
a necessary evil. I'll call it a necessary because we
need grading. The problem is that we need to fix grading.
And and you know, when you have a card that
was recently it just happened this week and the star,
it was one of the Star Rookie. It came out
on a Beckett authentic right. A guy buys in an
authentic holder, submits it to PSA and it comes back
a seven. You know, and you had Greg for Midlife.
Go submit some PSA cards and they all came out
different grades in the SGC than in PSA. So the
issue I think is that grading company. They're the reason
they're not as consistent, because when a grader looks at
the card, they're looking at the card for two three minutes,
not even that. In some cases, two minutes is gone.
It's over with, you know. So it's that one person's opinion.
And I've been to grading school. I've seen how they
grade the cards, and you just can't spend time on
every single card, so you make a guess at it
and you move on. And the graders really, in my opinion,
need to have a minimum two people or three look
at the card. I mean, we're paying quite a bit
of money PSA, especially some of the higher end cards.
You know, you may be paying hundreds of dollars to
get a card graded, and an opinion from one guy
one greater. You know, I want three people to look
at that card. If they don't agree on the grade,
then get together and agree on the grade. You know.
So whenever you can get a card and resubmit it
and get a different grade on it, that's an issue
in my opinion, you know. And you know that's why
I always say, you know, I'm looking for the card.
I'm buying the card, not the grade. For me. I
look for a card that looks like a sixth and
a four holder. Now that's the card I'm looking. But
why don't these graders really grade themselves. Have a second
person check that, double check it just in case you
know it's authentic. Let me pass it over to this guy, Hey,
is this really an authentic card? Or can this be graded?
And they don't do that. Right Now, that's one person's opinion,
and that's it. You resend it. You get in the
second grader's opinion. So I think that's the issue as
far as how I see it. Is it a scam?
I mean, it's not necessarily a scam because they tell you, hey,
it's an opinion. That's what grading is subjective. We as
the person that gets the cards that hey it's five
and it's a five. It has to be a five
because that's what the label said. But in many cases
it may not be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well here's go ahead, Chris. Well, I'm just gonna say,
you know, grating is is important for for authenticity to
authenticate when you get into the numerical grade itself. Like
you said, Orlando, it's subjective of that grater, right. I
will say this in a little bit of a defense
of the grading card companies in many cases more than
one grader does look at the car. Not every not
all the time. I'm not gonna say that as a
blanket statement, but probably of cards of significance, whatever you
want to.
Speaker 3: Do, yeah, IMA's very high. Val will have to look
at it in many cases. But the regular cards, one
person will look at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you're at the mercy of that that
you know, he or she that day of what they
believe that that card is. Maybe what you're saying, I
don't want to put words in your mouth to Orlando.
You almost want like a guaranteed that more than one
person is looking at it and then come to a
consensus grade, almost like a jury. Let's keep doing Verdon.
Speaker 3: I want to get my money's worth, you know. I
want someone to really get a good look at that card,
not a not a one two minute look. I want
somebody or a couple people, two three people were like,
you know, pass it down and say, hey, give this
one a grade, give us one of grade, gives the grade.
Three people do it. They can do it in five minutes.
Just pass that card down the row. You know, because
when I went to that grading school, you sit on
a big long table and they're all grading right there.
Pass the card down. Hey, you graded, you grated, you graded,
Check the notes and come up with a consensus. You know,
one grades of the four, one grades of the six,
one grades of the five. Okay, it's like a five.
Speaker 1: I just I want to comment. I want to comment
five five ball who I love. He's a good guy.
He speaks his mind. He doesn't mince words. That's a
good thing most of the time. He's got the first
part right right. SGC sponsor Sports Cardination and old sponsor
Hobby Hotline, the sponsor car Matches. If you listen to
my show, you've you've heard me on multiple occasions say
not great things sometimes about SGC, to the point where
Peter's called me up and we've had a conversation. So
I will speak my mind. You know that card I
talked about that Jordan was SGC. I talked about it
on my show. I've been critical of them at different
times on my show. I don't want to make the
whole rest of the episode. I just wanted to comment
to that comment that I like SGC, so you know,
but do everything they do is right? No, And I've
never said as such. And I've went on the air
and kind of I don't want to say put them
on blast, but have been critical of them on the air.
So I don't you know that that sponsorship doesn't preclude
me from my opinion is where I'm going, and I've
given it on more than one occasion, and it's not
all roses and daisies all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I agree, and I prefer us they're
more accurate. You know. One of the problems I think,
I say is during the COVID, they hired so many greaters,
I mean hundreds and hundreds of greaters, and those graders,
you know, they're learning on the job. That's where you
have a lot of issues sometimes. And I think SGC
has a lot more veteran graders, even though they did
hire a lot of graters, but they just don't have
as many, and they do have a lot more veteran greaters,
so I think they're a little more accurate. I mean, look,
I agree with the grades most of the time, but
every once in a while you get a card and
you look at it, said, how the hell did they
give this this grade? You know, and those are the
ones you'll I'll resubmit, and yeah, you'll get a better
grade in many instances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And how many times have we seen something great
at a ten and you look at the card, even
in a picture, not even in person, and you see
a corner like, no, way, that's a ten? Right? Sometimes
you get card back, right if you're great, or you
buy a card, you don't even have to get it back,
and it's moving in the case right here, Yeah, see
it right? So what if that's a ten and you
that thing gets shaken and travel in the corner gets right?
That I don't like, like get that way that card
doesn't move once it's in case, right, That's that's an issue.
Speaker 3: Well, that's another issue that need to fix. So they
do that a lot, and they put things in some
holders that are sometimes bigger than they need to be,
and you know, I just think they they all need
all of them. SUC does the same thing. They'll put
your card in a huge holder. Sometimes they just need
to be consistent. You know. Sometimes you'll get the same card,
maybe it's a little oversized, but the same card in
different size holder. And that's crazy too. But I think,
you know, like I said, de grading, you know, I
think that's really the way that the market has been developed.
At this point, the only way you can really get
your money out of selling a card is to have
a grade on it, because the raw you're never going
to get, you know, the really priced that you should get.
Speaker 1: Most comment a comment from Dylan. There's a CT scanning
for grading. Dylan mentions AI. You'd like to see AI
and take the subjective nature out. I'm not. I don't think. Well,
here's what I'll say. I don't want one hundred percent AI.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not against I'm not against AI, but I still
want the human element involved in that in some capacity
because we all know computers glitch as well. Right, that's
not fool proof as well. I gotta I got a
chromebook I use at work that I want to throw
to the window sometimes because of the glitches. Right, it's
not the end all a all end all be all right?
Am I opposed to AI. It's already being used. Most
of the companies are using AI when you send your
cards in to identify them. So it's already. What Dylan
is saying and many others are saying, is they want
the AI to actually grade the card itself. I'm not
opposed to that, but I still want, you know, how
you get your underwear and it says inspected by inspector
number twelve. I don't care if AI does the initial grade.
I still want a human to kind of sign off,
yes it's an eight, Yes it's a seven, Yes it's
a ten, and just verify the computer's work. And so
I don't want it to be one hundred percent AI,
but if it's, if it's both working in unison or together,
I'm not opposed to that, And that might be the answer.
I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, they're doing it right now, even PSA.
They bought that company, gentleman, and they do some AI
before the cards goes to the grade, they kind of
scan it and they see some of the defects on it,
but again the human eye, they pass it on somebody
else and then they look at it again because even
though it has certain defects, I appeal still kind of
the main thing when you're dealing with the grade and
the human can determine that. The problem with the AI
complete AI is that for new cards. Fine, you know
they can do it, just like TAG is doing it
right now. But you know, when you talk to Jeremy
Lee and you ask them how come they can't do
the vintage. It's a whole new animal because every vintage
card is so unique, everyone is different than all the
other ones, and the machine just has to learn how
to grade those. And it's very, very difficult to teach
something like that versus a brand new card out of
the pack that you know, they may have a scratch
on it, but they don't have like, you know, I
don't know whatever little minor things that you know, all
the stuff that the old cards have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you might see with tag like they're trying
to get this AI thing going, you know what aventure
might happen. You might see one of these bigger companies PSA, SGC,
you know, someone else, CG, you know, eventually buy them
and try to integrate some of what they've done. Right, Potentially,
that might be something you see down the line. Chrissy,
I haven't waited in yet on this. Let's let's get
let's hear from you here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we all need to understand that, yes,
grading is subjective, not objective. You're paying for a man's opinion.
I do believe that that's the way the way Beckett
grades cards is that they're graded by two different people,
and if there is a discrepancy between the two, it
goes to a senior grader to break the tie. So
I don't know if they do that anymore, but that
they used to. What else did I want to say? Yeah,
it's if you're going to send the same card to
a company and they grade it authentic but don't give
it a number, and then you send it to someone
else and they do grade it. You have to remember
these two. All the different grading companies have different rubrics
for their grading. So a card that may grade a
seven with one company may grade a six and a
half with another.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's gonna change. Really, the only way that'll
change is again with that AI, Chris, right, and even with.
Speaker 2: The AI, I mean it all depends on each company's.
Speaker 3: Room rate exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean a card that's off center, I don't know,
fifty five forty five might be eligible for a ten
with one company, but might only get a nine and
a half with another. So unless the grades becomes standardized,
I think you're gonna have that kind of problem. Yeah,
the grade, which I don't ever see happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's completely right. I mean every company has different
grading scales. Different grading texts, you know, and as you know,
SGC is a little bit more tolerant as far as
the size of the vintage cards. You know, they know
that back in the fifties and sixties, some of the
cards were cut a little short, you know, so they
will will grade some that PSA will say no, we won't, uh.
And the same with centering, you know, they're a little
more PSA actually is a little bit more off on centering.
Sometimes they'll give a seven that is pretty off centered.
So you know, each one has a different tolerance. And yeah,
you're right, they don't all grade the same and the
same scales. I mean, basically yes, but there's always nuances
between all the companies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why Beckett's doing
so poorly right now is because their standard for a
ten is really high. So a lot of the new
collectors that have come in, they've been told you got
to get a ten. It's a lot tougher to get
a ten from BGS than it is from PSA, which
doesn't even have a nine and a half grade. And
a lot of the cards that I think would grade
a PSA nine and a half if it existed they
just bump it up to ten.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, listen, grade eight is not gonna go I'm
not preaching a choiring crew. Grading is not going away.
We can talk about this probably for the next fifty years.
You know, I don't know how much it's.
Speaker 2: Gonna for the next fifty years.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Some people know great, right, and
that's that's your paragative. That's your choice, Chris. Right. You
can buy and deal and just raw cards. You can
buy raw cards, you can sell roll cards. You know,
I do both. I do graded in Yeah. Yeah, So
it's it's you know, I guess it's a highly acquired taste.
A lot of people are doing it, so it's a
taste people like. For the most part. It's got its warts, right,
I think we all know that it's it's got its warts.
That's not gonna go away. You know, every week, something
else is brought up, or something else happens that shines
the negative light onto the grading niche that's just gonna
be sort of par for the course. I hope it
doesn't happen, but you know, it's gonna. It's one of
those things, right, Uh. And you know it's kind of
is what it is until someone figures out tags trying
with the AI. You know, I don't know how well
or not well they're doing, but you know it's AI
has not taken uh, you know, has not made a
major impact overall. I think the AI is more like
just on the intake of the cards, identifying them and
getting them into the system. It hasn't really taken over
the actual grading of Like you said, Orlando, AI can't
grade vintage cards right now. It's too difficult. Will that
always be the case? I don't know. I'm not an
A I'm not an AI expert. I don't know if
we have I'm sure there are AI experts. I'm not
one of them. I don't think any of us in
here are or in the chat room. But you know,
as someone who likes you know, buying selling in the
you know, in collecting graded cards, I hope there is.
I hope it. Eventually we don't have to have these
conversations all the time. They're not good. It paints a
negative light on the space, right on the grading space.
And I hope someday we some of these problems aren't
problems anymore. It's not gonna happen tomorrow. Or next week
or next year. And if it is so, who knows
how long it would take? Right, If you don't like it,
I get it. I didn't like grading at first, and
I kind of did a one eighty and changed.
Speaker 2: My mind grading it from Ye wasn't until it came
along that the grating found it. It's niche in the hobby.
Speaker 3: That's right. It was with eBay because that's where people
have confidence that the grade you're saying is the accurate grade,
and they it's it's it's tough to sell a raw card,
you know, other than Greg Morris pretty accurately. If you're
going to buy a rock card on eBay, you can't
go with what the grade that the seller is saying.
Speaker 1: Now, let's not just let's not forget to. Grading is
not just even sports cards. The coins are graded. We
were seeing video games, we're seeing VHS tapes.
Speaker 3: Everything company.
Speaker 1: Yeah there's a company.
Speaker 3: Currency, Fucal pops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're great in fun. So everything is graded. Uh,
you know, so it's it's just par for the course
of the collectibles industry. And you know, who knew like
VHS typs, VHS tapes back in the day would have
a market, right, we ripped them open, put them in
our VCR. You know, had I known some things, I
might have just kept them sealed. Chances are most of
the time when we watched the VHS movie, we had
already seen the movie anyway, we wanted to see it again, Right,
we should have just kept that thing sealed for grading
twenty years thirty years later and you know made a mint,
so to speak. But who knew, right, We didn't know.
So grating's not going away. It just might not be
your thing, and you know it is my thing. But
I agree there's there's warts to it. We have to
live with them. We have maybe see how many of
those warts can be solved, if any and uh, and
that's that's just where we're at.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, that's exactly where we're at it just to
fix the little line we have, which it really can
they can't fix them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like may you know, like the things that some
of the things that brought up, like a card moving
in the case, make a case where that thing doesn't
move right and ding a corner and that's the so
that stuff we can fix, you know, don't grate a
card with a ding corner at ten and then have
it posted on social media for the world uh to see.
So uh, those are things that you can try to
avoid if well, guys, we're up against the hour, a
couple of minutes over. Glad to be back this week,
glad to have you'll be seeing Orlando. Uh, you know,
regular rotation on the show. Maybe from his car, maybe not.
Speaker 3: We'll see it won't be for my car next time.
Speaker 1: We'll take it. We'll take it either way, you know.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Listen, everybody, Thanks, Thanks, everyone in the chat. Thanks everyone
who downloads the show, maybe doesn't listen live, but listens
uh after the fact. We appreciate uh everyone else. So
uh for Orlando, for Chris, go ahead, Chris, play us out.
Speaker 2: Keep on rocking in the free world, folks,