Speaker 1: Good morning, fellow hobbyists, to episode three eighty nine of
Hobby Hotline The Sports Card Show, where you can be
a part of the show. All you got to do
is click that link that I put already in the
chat and you can be up here on screen and
interacting in the conversation. So with me this week, Chris Harris,
Welcome to the show and every So, what do you
got going on? Chris? In your world?
Speaker 2: I'm still covering from my surgery on my arm, my
second so go see the doctor on Monday, see how
it's going on. What's what's now? It's progressing. There's actually
a card show down here this weekend in Jobath Beach,
and I can't recall the last time there was a
card show in this part of Delaware in years, so
I don't know what to expect. It's probably going to
be like most card shows these days, at least a
third Pokemon so but still it's advertised as like a
one hundred and thirty table show, so even if a
third of them or Pokemon, that's about eighty to ninety
tables of sports cards. So I'll look forward to that tomorrow.
Sounds good.
Speaker 1: How about you, Rich? What's what's going on?
Speaker 3: Well, last weekend I ran my small fun twenty table
synagogue show by one person. We drew more people than
we'd ever drawn to the building before. And I know
because I sit and I keep track of the admissions.
And when I say admissions, it's a suggested donation, so
we don't insist you pay if you if you want
to say I want to come in, we let you in.
But in a small, little twenty show, we had very
little TCG stuff. But I had at least three of
my vendors crack four figures.
Speaker 2: And sales.
Speaker 3: And one sold I know one sold an Eerdie Banks rookie.
I know another did a three thousand dollars deal. I
know the other one I'm talking about did two thousand
dollars in the first two hours. I never asked him
again how much he did except on Sunday, except on
Monday morning, because being in a synagogue, we can't do Saturday.
So Monday morning somebody brought him an eighty six seven
through eighty nine ninety flare sets and he paid cash
for them, so he obviously did quite well. Because buying
flear sets or Flare sets, you know, those first couple
have some pretty decent cards to.
Speaker 4: Them, and next week I'll go to a three hundred
table show where and we were talking in the green room.
Speaker 3: The promoter opened up part of the show because he
wasn't selling all the sports cables either, so there was
a corner in the room he wasn't using, so he
added one hundred TCG tables, and we were trading emails
back and forth, like, hey, you know, it's your show,
and I get the business decision. You're bringing him more
money and it's your you know you need to bring
it in, and I get that one hundred percent. He
says what I wouldn't believe, as I've actually sold a
whole bunch more sports card tables because of bringing in
the TCG people, which to me sounded a counterintuitive, But
I guess everybody has a different things. But I'm looking
forward to that next weekend. And then you know today,
oh yeah, today my local card store. They're part of
the WAX I call it Empire of somewhere in the
somewhere thirty or giver take amount of stores. This is
since it's the last Saturday of the month, their company
wide trade night or trade afternoon at all of their
stores so I will pop into one of their stores
this afternoon.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good? Yeah, myself here Portland, Oregon, as
a vintage collector, I have already started counting down the
days to going to the National because I'm not a
modern basketball collector, which is heavily influenced here with the
Trailblazers being our only major team, or TCG dominates our
pathetic little card shows. So yeah, I do not have
the availability for in person experiences for what I'm collecting
in this region. So it's time to say hi to
the chat. I only host this once a month, but
I see the same names almost every time I'm running
this show, so I gotta give shout outs to these
folks in the chat. Here. We got Rubin of confluenced
sports cards. Good morning. We got a baseball card, curmudgeon
matt' able in Vegas. Laura, can't read your last name.
I need my reading glasses. Yank me card, Steve, how
do you produse on foul ball? Dan Still City DW
We got Chris C. Carl all the way from Australia
is watching us again, and Larry Gitlin. We got Jayhawk
or vintage car? This mic out there there we go.
So yeah, looking forward to seeing you as well at
the National. So I'm actually gonna be rooming with Eddie's
cardboard chaos this year. But first topic, the big news.
It is all over every channel as soon as they
came out. So we've got to talk about, you know,
the eight hundred pound gorilla in our hobby that you know,
whenever they do a big move, it rattles people across
the board. And we're talking PSA now shutting down all
of their value offerings and now what is it? Eighty
eighty five dollars. It's the lowest you can get a
card grading graded with them. Your your thoughts, Chris on
this happening now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I read on Twitter that in one
day this week, PSA received four hundred and fifty thousand cards,
four one hundred and fifty thousand cards in one day,
and it's like, no wonder they can't keep up. I mean,
I think there are two reasons for this. First of all, TCGs,
the whole TCG hobby has kind of been late adopters
of the concept of grading. They're kind of where we
were at in sports cards maybe twenty five or thirty
years ago when in regards to grading. So everybody's going back. Well,
you know, it's because with TCGs, people actually played with
their cards back then. They didn't think of them as
collectibles that needed to be protected and graded. And now
people are going back back in their old stashes and
subbing them and seeing what I seeing what they're getting
for what kind of grades that they might potentially get.
The other thing is that you have a lot of
people in both TCG and the sports card hobby that
are subbing cards that really shouldn't be subbed. And I'm
talking like Bass Rookies from Series one Tops high number
and unnumbered parallels from Series one Tops cards like that,
and the return on investment, even if you do get
a nine and a half or a ten, the value
you add to that card really really shouldn't be all
that much. So I think, yeah, I think it's probably
going to as long as more and more TCG is
being submitted, and as more as more and more Bass
Rookies and Bass cards and you know, filler inserts from
flagship products keep getting submitted, PSA is going to keep
having these problems and they're just going to keep having
these backlogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as well, back to the TCG. I mean, are
they also in the space now where their hobby is
so hot that they're essentially grading the cards that are
equivalent to twenty twenty one Gavin Lux's the Yeah are
now coasters?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Pretty much?
Speaker 3: Okay, a couple of things. Way back in the day,
when we at Beckett we're starting Beckett grading, you know,
we in our price guide area would just say, you know,
logically you should not submit a card for grading, and
there would be some exceptions like if you wanted to
get any mental playing your card guslab that was fine,
you know, those those type of exceptions, but you should
not be grading a card, or you should only pay
fifteen percent of the value of the card to get
a graded. One of the great strengths of the PSA
registry has also turned out to be one of the
great weaknesses of the PSA registry, where that simple mathematic
coll equation is gone, because if you think you have
a perfect eighty eight tops that you think you get
a tent on it, you were sending it in even
back in the day, well when when it was five
or six dollars for a card, it didn't sound so bad. Now,
whatever price level it is. It's not good, but we
are used to that. And the other problem is is
PSA has always scaled up in modern days. You know,
I was reading and people forgot there's an office in
New Jersey where they greade cards. They've got an office
in Boco, Florida, near SGC, if not in the same
building SGC was in. They've got their main hub in California.
I believe they have offices in England, Germany and Japan.
I could be wrong, trying to keep up with all
their foreign offices are so they have been scaling up
for years and they're still getting overwhelmed. And it's a
very tough business decision. We have to stop the spay
it otherwise, you know, at some point you pricing everybody out.
So right now we have to do a short term
of pricing everybody out so we can get back to
where we can start pricing everybody in. And we went
through this in twenty twenty one PSAQ. You know they
had you know, there were famous photos of the floor
of PSA offices with nothing but unopened boxes of cards.
So we've been here before. We've seen this movie before.
I thought it was a mistake. It wasn't a mistake
as it turned out, so I don't think it's going
to be a mistake again to put a kibash on
lower tiers submissions for a while to catch the backlog.
And here's the other thing. People say, Oh, you know,
why don't they hire more graders. It's not easy. Grading
is not easy. Okay, maybe if you're doing modern twenty
twenty six cards, grading is easy, but a lot of
stuff it's not easy for and you have to know
what to look for in a whole group of sets,
and therefore scaling up is a lot more difficult than
you think it is. Even if graders are getting paid
good money, it's still more difficult because sometimes you can't
be a dealer or you can't even have the side
hustle if you if you're working for PSA and so
you have to so you have to consider all that
before you go to work for anybody.
Speaker 1: John, I just do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. This is a donut graph from the website
gem rate. I don't know if you guys are familiar
with gem rate, but they actually go.
Speaker 1: The monthly yeah, just for curiosity sake.
Speaker 2: So this graph shows all the cards that have been
graded by the three four major grading houses over the
last thirty days. And as you can see this teal
colored for those of you listening, you can't see this,
but almost two thirds of the cards that they've graded
over the last thirty days have been TCGs and then
baseball is second with about maybe ten percent, Basketball about
seven or eight. So yeah, this is the problem now,
is the TCG hobby has discovered grading and is now
swamping the major grading houses, especially PSA, with their cards.
This is the reason why you're seeing this this pause.
Here you can see almost one and a half million
TCG cards in the last thirty days.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a million total. I wonder the TCG folks
going to be as finicky about the grading company as
sports card people tend to be, and will we see
another major player grading TCG. So you know, this is
kind of the time where we ended up having all
kinds of new grading companies in twenty twenty one pop up,
you know, with like HGA for a while.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised there isn't one grading company out there that
says they will not accept sports cards. We're just gonna
specialize in TCGs. And I'm also not surprised now that
PSA owns Beckett and SGC, that they take one of those,
maybe SGC, and make it exclusively for sports cards and
get out of TCG.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess what's coming next is probably CGC
getting overwhelmed Tearson.
Speaker 3: Next, don't forget TAG, which is very heavily helped by AI,
had to pause submissions too, And I'll wager CGC, if
they get inundated, they'll have to do something similar because
the man power and woman power is just not out
there to grade all these cards. Even if it's the
easiest thing in the world where you open the packs
and you send them in, there's still a huge process.
I mean, we you know, we forget, but the process
is I wonder how many hands have to touch a
card between the time it's opened at PSA, actually received
at PSA, and the time it's sent back to you.
I'll wager you're in the mid double digits, like fifteen
to twenty different people are handling some part of the
process at PSA. I do not know this, but I
know when I bring my car in for servicing at
my dealership, it's thirteen to fifteen people who handle something
about my car. When I bring it in. I also
know a local mechanic, and if I bring it to
the local mechanic, they're two people, you know, So you
know there is that. But there are processes, and there
are processes, and there are processes. It's not just like
the boxes, the boxes opened, the boxes received. Person brings
it to the office, they open it, somebody opens it,
the grader opens it, okay, grades the card, gives them
to the verifier. There's a lot more processes than that.
Along the way was payment submitted? Was how many does
the amount of cards match what's in the submission? If
sometimes you can catch there might be a mistake in
the submission. Yeah, and that's just one part of it.
Then it goes to where it's ready in the queue
to be graded, and then after it's graded, it has
to be what they call assembled, and then it has
to be shipped out. There's a lot of processes involved
and we sometimes forget that.
Speaker 1: Uh, consensus all over the chat is, you know, the
collectors don't care because I don't think you know, out
of that two million, what how much percentages? Even collectors,
I think, you know, the vast majority of anybody sending
these days is going to be somebody sending to resell.
But and Chris C. I think you can substitute the
word monopoly in this statement with company unless it's your
local mom and pop, you know business. So because companies
are in the business to take your money. So yeah,
it's kind of buy stuck in mag Pro as a comment,
everybody's talking about joining their raw cards. So yeah, what
is the minimum s PSA tier now?
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's expressed during during the shutdown.
I believe it's the eighty five dollars express ouch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's only somebody sending in a really high
dollar card that wants to resell it.
Speaker 3: Okay, sixty okay? What okay? Whether it's sixty nine, eighty six, five, whatever,
I don't know if we have the numbers. Here's the thing.
Other thing to remember, the national is X number of
days away. I think we're sixty days away, give or take.
The other thing to remember, we all thought there would
be nobody on the PSA lines when they had a
shutdown during the national you know, and the only thing
you could do was like one hundred and fifty dollars submissions.
Those lines were out the door. Guess what those lines
will be out the door again. And I mean, we've
seen this movie before. This is not a new who
this is not a new issue. And I saw a
comment about how many people handle the car. It's not
necessarily when I go to the dealership, how many people
handle the paperwork. But you get greeted by a person
when you come in. There's another person that drives the
car the short distance to where the mechanic works on
the car. The mechanic works on the car, then another
person drives it, you know, and they wash your car
at the end. I know this sounds strange. And then
the person working with you comes and tells you during
the processes what you need to get done. And there's
also when you check out how much you know And
I'm missing a couple steps, but this is what they
told me at the dealership that there was about thirteen
to fifteen people who handle some point of your servicing
at the car. Because it's not just drop off the
car and somebody brings it in or you bring it
into where it works on. It's a whole thing. There's
you know. So that's what I'm talking about with that,
And yes, it is interesting, and you know, you might
say okay, is there a way to be more efficient
with what you deal with? I guarantee you every company
works on being more efficient because for Nat Turner and
his group of people who are in the ownership of PSA,
the more efficient you are, the more profit you make.
So trust me, it makes sense for PSA to be efficient.
Speaker 1: We got a question for you. If that many hands
are touching, it is an efficiency problem.
Speaker 3: My car usually gets serviced on time. It's just they
have their system down path. You know, we're used to
you know, many of us just go to cards. Chris
talks about going to a card show today or tomorrow.
I don't know if it's both days or just today.
It's the whole weekend, all weekend, so it was all
week and Chris is talking about going to a card show.
That's the very efficient. You walk in. I don't know
if it's at a mall where it's free or weather.
Sometimes Rehobeth used to have mall shows that were free.
I don't know if this is at a mall that's free.
Speaker 2: Or whether it No, it's in town at a convention center.
Speaker 3: So okay, so you're gonna have to pay to get in.
So there's a little more friction, but not terrible. So
you basically have about three or four people you have
to deal with just to deal with the show, and
if they have concessions, maybe five, so you have your
hot dogs, chips, soda or whatever they have for lunch there.
I mean, I can tell you because of the nature
of how our Synagogua show is set up, we can
do the show with about three people during the show,
but I like to have three people there. I'm sitting
at the front desk. We have a little mini kitchen
because being a synagogue there are some dietary things, and
I like to have one floater around in case something
comes up on the floor during the show and then
we need a few people to set up and break down.
There's always more than you realize that's involved, and it's
a hard concept to realize it's more involved than you realize.
Speaker 1: All Right, any other thoughts on this or are we
ready to move on?
Speaker 2: Let's move on to the next one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we can have some more fun topics.
I think everybody has their own opinion. And you know
the fact that I do not own a graded card
does not mean that I don't respect the work that
all the graded companies do, and eventually this may break,
the fever may break, but it's certainly not showing any
signs of breaking for now.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, This next item is that the twenty
six Tops they put a redemption card for a fifty
two mantle that is supposed to be graded, and that
redemption card is currently in auction for golden, which I
can share where that's at right now. But so they're
literally just putting up the redemption card that doesn't have
any indication of what the grade of the mantle is.
And I don't see that there's gonna be any markings
on it after it's redeemed that indicates it's this special
one of one. So I mean, what value does this have?
Are they just gambling that it's going to be a
higher grade than A one? I don't get it.
Speaker 2: How do we know that Tops even has in hand
of fifty two tops Mickey mantle that's graded that they're
gonna give away. Have they even bought this card yet? Chris?
Speaker 3: If I remember correctly, they they have purchased everyone and
it's there's gonna be some serious doing some of the update.
If I remember, they have purchased every every card they're
not going to leave it to chance.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they've bought the card, what do we know?
What do we know about the grade of the card though,
because right now the bid is seventy nine thousand dollars
with a month to go. You know what, I know?
The difference between a tour or of three and a
seven and a eight is probably I don't know, maybe
a million dollars. If this redemption card closes at close
to a million dollars and the card that Tops delivers
is a three, well, the person who bought this redemption
cards probably out close to a million dollars in value.
So what's going on here with the grade? Why don't
we know that what the grade is?
Speaker 3: Chris?
Speaker 2: That that kind of leads me to believe that Tops
doesn't have this card and to give away.
Speaker 3: I will wager they do have the card.
Speaker 2: Okay, they haven't revealed the grade though.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't see how anybody bids in an
auction when you dolln't have all the information of what
you're getting.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: But I will tell you if you have a million, Chris,
if you have a million dollars to bid in an auction,
the odds are pretty good that you have more money
than the three of us combined, and a million dollars
to you could be like one hundred dollars to us,
where it's just the number.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go. What if it's a BBG one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all it says is graded, not created by whom,
although I do think Tops did say that these are
going to be PSA graded. But again, but even still,
you know what you're getting. It'd be a two or three.
It could be a seven or an eight. I don't
expect them to give away a nine or it's end.
By the way.
Speaker 3: A few months ago, Josh Luber wrote his second manifesto.
This manifesto was about what he called, if I remember
the term blind boxification of the hobby, and basically the
whole point was something exactly like this. This is part
of the blind boxification, and that's part of what the
hobby is. And we don't like it because we're all
thinking logically. But anybody who's betting on this card is thinking, Okay,
I'm going to get a special card. It's gonna have notation.
This is the one pulled from the pack, and if
it's a really high level card, I win. And if
it's a low level card. I have a great story
to tell, and as I said, I guarantee you anybody
who's been on this can't afford what they're doing.
Speaker 2: There was a question in the chat I have to
respond to this. Uh, it was by eight step one productions.
Why does it matter if they bought the grade? Why
can't someone buy the redemption for the excitement of the redemption?
Why does it have to be an analysis? Well, here's
the thing. If you're spending this much money on a card,
you should at least know what card you're getting, do
you not. I mean, yes, it does say you're getting
a graded fifty two mantle, but again you don't know
what grade it is. I mean, if you just want
a fifty two mantle, yeah, you can get a raw
one in pretty piss poor condition for like what ten
or fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like this, you.
Speaker 2: Would you would hope to know what it is that
you're paying seventy nine thousand dollars plus four. I mean,
if all Tops is going to deliver you is a
two or three, I mean, you've been been made a
sucker out of You've been hosed. So yeah, that that's
kind of what why it does matter? What great it is.
Speaker 3: Well, one other point about analysis is that everybody, everybody
has an opinion about things in the hobby, and some
people look at things analytically. It's not an issue to
look at something analytically. Now, when we go to a
show and we purchase cards, and I'm a value box
dump diver, and I think Chris is too. Chris has
a wantless I don't have a want list, but both
of us are looking. We're not going to We're not
going to buy an eighty eight tops Common card in
the dollar bins, but we might buy an eighty eight
Tiffany Tom glavincard out of the dollar binner. You know,
eighty eight Tiffany Roberto Alomar traded Roberto Alamar because we
know there's a value to that. So there is analysis.
There's even analysis when you purchase a card, so everybody
has some analysis thereof.
Speaker 1: Well, we still have twenty nine days away, and he
guesses of what the final price it's going to be
on this.
Speaker 3: I gave up in nineteen ninety one making predictions on
card values when I told New York Magazine that the
Wagner that was being auctioned as part of the the
PSA Wagner that McNall and Gretzky booked What's Going to
Go for about two hundred thousand, and when I went
for four hundred and fifty thousand, I said, you know,
my prediction days are done. I do not understand what's
going on. So I have I have made sure I
have not made predictions on card value since nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every prediction six hundred and forty five thousand, so bargain.
Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty good over under. I think
this will sell for mid six figures. Again, if TOPS
actually gets around, you're revealing what the grad is on
this card. I think that'll play play a role in
its final price. So anybody from TOPS is listening, and
I know you are. What is the grade on this card?
That is, if you have it?
Speaker 1: Because I caution anybody bidding on this because of the
fact that I feel like if it was a halfway
decent level grade on this they would have included that
in their marketing. They would have marketed the hell out
of it being a mid grade or higher card for
this card.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have any of the other redemption cards been pulled
and mentioned upgrade on it. Are you aware either one
of you aware of because this is the first time
I know there were maybe redemption cards for like two
dozen other prominent tops cards off of that best seventy
five lists that they came up with.
Speaker 3: I think I've seen one or two that have surfaced,
but I'm not positive.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I listen.
Speaker 3: I don't pay attention enough in that world, and I
and I'm not on Twitter ever since some of the
changes have been made. I am very little on Twitter nowadays,
and I you know, like, for example, I can't post
any Internet links and I don't want to go through
the world of doing webcasts or doing you know, you know,
links from something. So I just I just skipped being
on Twitter. So I miss a lot of the Twitter stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The here a fan in the stands is bringing up
the exact point I was thinking, is that the redemption
card itself might be a one on one. But if
they haven't done anything special with the slab, how does
that even maintain any kind of provenance?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean they're just telling you you're getting
a graded card. You don't know what great it is,
and there's nothing notating it on it.
Speaker 1: So but.
Speaker 2: All right, I think we've beaten this to death.
Speaker 3: So what's interesting if you think about it? With all
the people breaking in all that, so few of these
cards have surfaced, and that tells me that they're in.
They're still in sitting in packs. And remember, if I
remember correctly, TOPS has a ten year redemption now, so
you might be seeing these cards pop up three, four,
five years from now.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, as many packs as are being produced
of the base product these days, they could be unopened
for a really long time. So but all right, not
on the rundown there. But since it's coming up and
Chris is big on soccer, we thought we'd inject some
World Cup into the mix. I guess the few weeks
of every three years where Americans actually realized they're excited
the world play soccer.
Speaker 2: Excited about them paying four figures for a ticket to
see Cabo Verde versus the Ivory Coast on a Wednesday afternoon.
Nobody's excited about that. Nobody's excited about paying ninety eight
dollars for a train ride to the Meadowlands. This is
this World Cup is turning into a total you know
what show with the price gouging going on, and I
understand why FIFA is doing it because US Americans were
kind of used to paying top dollar for sporting events,
but this is this is just kind of ridiculous with
some of these these prices. I mean, I'd love to
go to a couple of World Cup matches. There's about
six group stage matches taking place in Philadelphia and a
Round of sixteen match, but I can't afford to go
to that. I can't afford to pay close to one
thousand dollars for an upper deck seat.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: I can't, and especially this year, the way this kind
of I don't want to get too political here, but
this kind of malaise that's kind of grown over the
country this year. I mean, we're about to celebrate our
two hundred and fiftieth birthday and nobody seems to be
happy about that either. So as for the actual tournament,
I really think, I really hope that this is the
summer that Americans, Civilians, people that don't ordinarily follow soccer
finally get soccer. I hope this is the year that
the US does well. They should be able to get
out of the knockout round. I mean, get to the
knockout rounds, they were drawn in a pretty easy group
with Paraguay and Australia. And because the knockout round has
been the tournament's been expanded from thirty two to forty
eight teams. The knockout round has been expanded from sixteen
teams to thirty two. So the US, if they get
out of the group stage, they should face a pretty
weak team in that first knockout game. It should be
the second knockout game in the round of sixteen is
when the real tournaments are going to begin, So they
may have to face a country in that round of
sixteen against one of the traditional European powers, like like
Belgium in twenty fourteen or the Netherlands four years ago,
of that caliber. And I think this team, I think
this team, with a home field advantage, they would be
able to give one of a team of that caliber
a good run in a potential round of sixteen games.
So getting to the round of sixteen for the US
I think should be the minimum for a successful tournament.
So I don't know if you guys follow soccer, John,
I know you're in Portland. I've been to Portland. Soccer's
a big the Timbers are big. You got a nice
old fashioned soccer ground and municipal or whatever they're whatever
sponsor they're calling it now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they took the stadium and turned it into all soccer.
It's there downtown, so we used to have the ability
to watch Triple A baseball a decade ago, but they
converted the stadium to be only soccer.
Speaker 2: Did a real good job of it, so if I
say so myself.
Speaker 1: But I must say the only time I ever went
to see them play was when I first moved here
and didn't realize what the team names were between the
baseball team and the soccer team, and inadvertently bought tickets
to the soccer game. So I intended to go to
a Triple A baseball game.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, we are lucky here in the Dallas area.
We do have a very nice facility, and they've added
a whole bunch of soccer related fields right there. I
don't know the name of this deadium. I'm sure it's
some corporate name, but where FC Dallas plays up in
Frisco and my wife's cousin's son was playing in a
I believe sixteen and under elite team tournament a few
weeks ago they did six I have not I forgot
to ask my wife to ask her cousin whether they
how they did in Salt Lake City Memorial Day weekend.
But they did win their division and they moved to
the finals, so to speak, the final rounds. But I
will tell you that one thing that really interested me
was a the kid had a motor he could move
up to twenty one miles per hour, which is only
a couple miles an hour less than the pure sprint speed.
The other thing was the sheer volume of people who
were going to these matches as recruiters. As we were
coming in, we saw people wearing and I think it's Clemson.
I'm not positive Clemson soccer shirts, and we asked them,
you know, I think if I remember, you guys have
a pretty good program, and it goes, yeah, we've won
two national titles in the last five years. And then
I overheard a conversation where they were trying to recruit
somebody to go to wherever juniors and seniors in high
school can go. And the person that already said no,
we've already signed up with this, and they said, well,
we're part of whatever European league it is, and you know,
keep us in mind. I mean, the sheer amount of
people who know about soccer was just flooring to me.
You know, how big it was and how many non
family people came to watch these really good kids play.
But that's sort of an aside, because you know, FC
Dallas is a very affordable game to go to. It's
a very affordable match. It's not you know, and we're
also in Frisco. We have the Frisco Rough Riders minor
league baseball team. Again, it's a reasonably affordable night at
the ballpark, and that's what Chris is talking about. I'm
not going to go to Jerry World to watch a
game because it's just going to be out of control.
And like Chris, I do not feel like spending four
figures to watch to watch a soccer match. It's not
something on my bucket list, so to speak. Now, if
somebody hands me to tickets, we'll go. Failing that, not
so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of folks coming into Dallas
Fort Worth area for the World Cup all going to
be in for a bit of a bit of a
culture shock because I believe Arlington, Texas is the largest
city in America without a public transportation system.
Speaker 3: While getting that's going to be that's not really true anymore.
It was a big thing a few years ago, but
it's nowhere near where it should be. But there is
a there are some small selected bus routes now in Arlington.
Speaker 2: Oh Okay, so they do. They don't have a direct rail.
Speaker 3: No, they don't have a direct they don't have a
direct rail, but they do have some public transportation now.
And one of the reasons that they never got it
is Jerry and all the people. You know, they don't
want to build the trains because it takes money away
from the parking making all that parking money at the stadium.
So let's be honest. You know, I would be thrilled
with a train ride to Globelife Field or at and
T Stadium. You know, those would be wonderful. You know,
I grew up in the New York area. I could
take the train to yank the subway to Yankee Stadium
or Shea Stadium now now City Field, I believe it
is in New York. I can't do that going to
the World Cup.
Speaker 2: You could.
Speaker 3: There used to be bus routes that took you if
you knew how to do it. Actually you could get
it would be a small walk and you could walk
to where they're playing the World Cup. I did that
a couple of times when the New York Cosmos were
playing soccer. I actually knew how to take the bus
into the city, then take a bus two basically giant
stadium at the time where the Cosmos played, and then
we could take the bus back. So you could do that,
but you had to know which bus route it was
that dropped you off within walking distance.
Speaker 2: You're not going to be able to to uh take
the bus to to uh MetLife Stadium or or excuse me,
the New York Stadium can't call them by their sponsors uh.
And you can't even drive to the stadium because FIFA
is taking a lot of the parking spaces uh that
are used during NFL season for tailgating and creating a
security buffer. So for a lot of these state these
uh these stadiums that they're having the World Cup at,
you won't be able to drive there and park even
if you wanted to.
Speaker 3: So well, they will have shuttle surfaces, so so you
know you don't have to walk.
Speaker 2: They will and you're gonna have to pay up the
you know what for that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I know. When I go to Rough Riders games,
we usually park at the at the at the uh
More we call it it's the mall. It's Stonebriar Mall.
There's a place you can park and you walk across
the street to the game. It's a little bit extra
to walk. When I say it's a little bit extra,
it's a little bit of a hype, but not terribly.
And you walk in, you don't pay, but the parking's
only ten dollars for the Rough Riders. So I don't
consider that so bad, folks. Chris is like that a
lot of the time, so it's not the wrong.
Speaker 2: You must be that my normal surly behavior. The fact
that I've been rehabbing my arm for the last month
and I've been unemployed for over a year. So yeah,
I have.
Speaker 1: The card front. It's on the card front. Does that
mean there'll be a momentary surge of soccer cards and
Jeff Wilson will be making a video talking about how
the soccer cards are on fire.
Speaker 3: I will say when the twenty two World Cup was played,
was was was done at Commsee because we were setting
up every show at the time of the Dallas Card Show.
The sheer volume of soccer cards we got before the
World Cup, you would not believe just how intense how
many soccer cards we got. We got one soccer card
so expensive that Angel and Stefan flew out to flew
out to Washington to hand deliver the card. It was
some Lionel Messi card. I believe number to autograph, number
to seven. I think I may have had a jersey,
but it was that card was so expensive. We just said,
you know, it was like, we're not taking any chance
of with that going in the mail. It's being flown out.
But that's how intense the soccer collectors were before the
World Cup. I'm sure the same thing is happening again,
you know. And one side note on this, if you noticed,
Fanatics has announced at beginning twenty thirty one, so Panini
will have one more run at it. They're basically taking
over everything relating to the World Cup when it comes
to cards and stickers. And you can say pros or cons,
but I think overall Fanatics has done a even better
job than Panini did. And Panini did a good job
with this of increasing interest in the hobby with all
the connections they have and all the tentacles they have,
so I suspect the twenty you know, the twenty thirty
four World Cup, you will see more cards than ever before.
And one thing to remember is Fanatics Fest in New York,
which is also the same weekend as the West Coast
Card Show in the Dallas Card Show.
Speaker 2: So it's you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you really want to have fun,
if you really have money, you can crisscross the country
and hit three. We see several thousand tables of cards
in a weekend before the national and see all sorts
of the country. Why you're at it is they scheduled
Fanatics Festival for the final weekend, which is at whatever
giant stadium is called down and it's the liberally scheduled
because that was World Cup Finals weekend.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the thing with soccer cards too is that
I don't think people understand is that up until twenty fourteen,
I mean that was the year Panini came out with
World Cup Prism, most of the soccer releases were either
stickers or TCGs like Pannini Adrenaline or tops Men Match Attacks.
American style sports cards were not really a thing in
soccer until recently so and by American cars style cards.
Speaker 3: They were a thing, but they weren't a thing in America.
Speaker 2: No, they weren't a thing at all.
Speaker 3: Well, England has a A and BC, which is like
a top subsidiary did soccer cards for.
Speaker 2: Talking about card sets with like fifty different levels of parallels.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, cars pointing out there was plenty of cards
being inserts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they they've had. They've had tobacco cards and gum
cards for years. But in recent years, most most soccer
releases in Europe and Latin America were either stickers or
TCG until really recently.
Speaker 1: So all right, uh, we're getting close to the bond
the hour. But instead of this baseball talk, actually, uh a,
I think a bigger hobby thing is tonight with the
Game seven of the Western Conference Finals. If Wemby Yama
actually eliminates you know, the Flop City Thunder and wins
his first title, I mean, his cards are just gonna
be nuts.
Speaker 3: They already are, they are ready are priced in. So
but I will I will, I will say that Wemby
reminds me of watching a very young Luel Sindor before
he changed his name to kareem Up Duel Jabbar. He
is the number one draft choice. In nineteen sixty nine,
the Bucks get to the playoffs, but they're not yet
ready to beat the Knicks, and the Knicks wipe them
out and then go on to win the title against
the Lakers in Game seven with the famous game with
Willis Reid hobbling in hitting the first two shots of
the game, and basically Game seven, Walf Fraser plays a
typical Walf Fraser game that everybody else thinks is the
game of his life. He was a little better than
he usually was, but Walf Fraser is the greatest nick
of all time and showed why in that Game seven.
Speaker 1: But oh, apparently the wrong we on that comment.
Speaker 3: The next year the Bucks win the title. Wemby was
second year for Luke for mis Draussindor, and then it
took to the Lakers and getting magic and getting there.
But my point is that Wemby reminds me of the
second year Luell Center taking the Bucks to the title.
And I don't I can't say they're gonna win Game
seven on the road. There's no such You never know
what's gonna happen in Game seven. But they're there and
Wemby reminds me of elisond Or nineteen seventy one. And
by the way, there is a YouTube, Phoe, there's a
YouTube video. I'm sure of the game the Bucks play
the Lakers, and I believe January of seventy one, seventy two,
so I mean you can see a young, young enough
Luel Cender where the Bucks and the Lakers thirty three
game winning streak. That was like a huge thing that
I think they ABC saved the game on video and
you can still see that today.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm obviously too young for young Luel Sender there,
but to me, it's Off Sampson with a deeper range shot, so.
Speaker 3: That was an amazing shot.
Speaker 2: The one thing that I can't wait to see, regardless
of who wins tonight, are all the celebrities that show
up at NICK games having to travel to San Antonio
or Oklahoma City and adjusting to life in Middle America,
like Chalomet, Spike, Bat Joe, the whole gang in like
on the river Walk in San Antonio, just chilling for
an afternoon before a match. So it's funny, that's what
I want to see.
Speaker 3: It's funny because the Atlantic had a story a couple
of weeks ago because a Yasiel Pueguet tops Now card
in like PSA ten so for like sixty dollars, and
the reason was there's Kobe in the background. Yeah, and
I mean, and they had other cards listed and I
and I checked the COMCA database. We had every We
had everyone they listed correctly noted in the COMCA database,
so I didn't have to add anything. But that's but
you know it, the NBA has a lot, you know,
you do get a lot of background photos of cards.
Even the Melenda's brothers showed up on the back of them,
you know, on the background of a Mark Jackson card.
Speaker 2: And people didn't realize it was then for like thirty
years and now it's a ten dollars card, but literally
a ten cent card.
Speaker 3: So it, you know, it goes to show that we're
still learning stuff about the hobby, you know, even the
overproduced era. We're still learning stuff thirty thirty years later.
And Mike, that's Mike. That's actually one of the more
interesting comments made to day. He was having a great
rookie year, hempce, you know, eight to twelve weeks during
the middle of your rookie year. When you fit twenty
homers already as a rookie is a devastating blow to
the White Sox. I'll be back in a second.
Speaker 2: Well we're almost out on that, or got anything else
you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: Uh? I mean, I do find it interesting that it's
become a pervasive conversation with the flopping now, and I
hope the league can put a stop to it. Is
all for the NBA's sake. But and a villain thunderof
you get a yellow curve, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you get a foul?
Speaker 3: Okay, back, all right.
Speaker 1: All right, you're back in time to wrap things up.
So any last word for the focks in ol? Uncle Rich?
Speaker 3: No, I I've I already said what I was doing today.
In fact, I'm going to head out for my walk,
grab a small lunch, go to trade day and later
and just be out and about.
Speaker 1: All right, how about you, Chris?
Speaker 2: And in just about a few minutes or so the
Champions League Final Arsenal and PSG, So my afternoon.
Speaker 3: You can call them by their full name. What PSG?
Speaker 2: Paris? Okay, Paris in Jerman. The PSG is just a
little people.
Speaker 1: Know, all right? I have a fun weekend of getting
ready for house guests for the following weekend. With my
middle son graduating high.
Speaker 3: School, congratulations on that.
Speaker 2: Where's he going to go to college?
Speaker 1: He is going to start out at junior college to
make sure he finds the right path for I will tell.
Speaker 3: You we have switching to a quick thing on that
I used to do set up at college fairs, and
we have a really good community college about five minutes
from where I live. And I used to tell people,
if you don't know and you're not sure, the two
years at the community college will cost you about two
thousand dollars. Your son or daughter can live at home,
and then ninety nine percent of what they have can
transfer to any other school. And you've saved money, you've
saved the college debt, and you and you're good and
you're on a good path. So I am a big
fan of good community, good community or junior colleges.
Speaker 1: And Portland area has a great network of them where
it's they're all linked up with Portland Community College where
different campuses offer different specialty items. So it's kind of
cool how they've set it up.
Speaker 3: Well, what's interesting thing is this college I'm talking about
has a top ten. They only at one point they
are only I think they've added a few more things.
At one point there only four year program was a
nursing program, which was actually a top ten nursing program
in the country.
Speaker 1: Nice, all right, Thanks to everyone in the chat who participated.
We had quite the very sort of topics today. But
everybody out there. Tomorrow night I am hosting the Four
Collectors live stream, of which I've got a panel of
David Chase, Dylan Doubled the Vantage, and Christopher Missouri in
which with all this talk lately on collector channels of
condition and deformities and flaws, I am inviting them to
bring on their cards that are have deformities and flaws.
Be a parade of those cards that we still love.
Speaker 3: So one quick comment on Yankees cards. Texas is starting
to expand there for normal high schools their trade school
programs as well, which I think is well worthwhile. So
I think people are learning that the trade schools in
high school is really a great option for many kids.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but everybody, thanks, We'll see you next time
here on Four Collectors