Speaker 1: Well, hello, welcome to Hobby Hotline, Episode three, twenty eight.
I'm Danny Black. I'm gonna have some friends maybe joining
me soon. We might take an abbreviated episode today as
everybody gets back from the holidays, right back into a
holiday weekend, so a lot of people traveling this weekend.
Mad City Brew, We are definitely going to talk about
you today. What's up? TJ? Yeah, Sad said, see Bob
you gone. We're doing the turnaround. Might be a short
one this morning, but good to see you, buddy. What's
going on Steven so yeah? Uker? I mean, what do
you say about him? He was the the ambassador of
goodwill for baseball. What's going on everybody? And let me
also definitely uh say hello to the sports card shop
and get their banner going. Rex and the whole family
over there doing it again. Yeah, Warren, this might be
might be a real quick one this morning. Hate to
do that to you guys, but we'll see solo on
the flip turn here. What's going on, Orlando? How are you? Warren?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Good, see Warren in the room, fell Ball, good morning.
If anybody wants to jump in NFL weekend, it is
an NFL weekend. We've got Commanders, Eagles, Chiefs, and Texans,
and if the Texans can pull it out, then just
saying they come to Baltimore, Baltimore beats Buffalo, their host
in a home conference championship. Yeah, like a drift, Era
was born to walk alone. I'm telling you what's going on?
All right? So let's uh, let's tell some Ucher stories
real quick, some funny ones. Hopefully, what's going on? Larry
uh Uker said that the best, uh, the best contract
he ever had. He said, he had a fantastic contract
with a uniform and equipment company. They paid him very
good money to never wear their products. Uh in some
of these If you were watching last night, you heard
on card manches, but I just think they're hysterical. Uh Uker,
who couldn't catch Phil Nicro's knuckleball, said he learned the secret.
Just let it stop rolling and pick it up. He
was he was, He was great. He called most brewery
game straight as an arrow, and where he was his
best was the blowouts. When it six nothing in the
seventh on a Wednesday in July, that's when you got
Yuker story. He got a player's share. I learned that
when they when they would win in the playoffs, or
when they went to the World Series. So I just
think that's really really cool and said a lot about him.
I showed his rookie card last night. That's a five place.
He doesn't look great in the picture. Sorry, sorry, you
couldn't have been happy with that piece either. He looks
he looks like he's fty years old, his rookie his
second year of card where he's by himself, he looks
much better. He was a treasure. Thank goodness. I think
we might have Chris jumping on here for a minute,
you know, the other big story and got to talk
about this Sazaki to l A, what do we think
about that Dodgers again? I mean, is it over and done?
Do they get whoever they want? And what's that going
to do to cards?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I can do my Larry King, Chris little Rock go.
What do you guys think about Sazaki going to the Dodger?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: They go with a six man rotation? Bring Kershaw back
at some point. Learn. I think baseball needs to fix
you know, it's it's a tough situation and most people
don't realize and maybe this is the answer. He's averaged
about one hundred innings a season. All teams can do this,
they could, they don't. The Dodgers just seem to win
over and over. They seem to have a great recruiting.
Reuben says, I'm disappointed the Dodgers got him. Wanted to
see him go to San Diego and make the Dodgers earn.
I'll be honest, I would have loved to see him
go to San Diego. Absolutely. What's up? Fellas? And TJ says,
Matt's the Dodgers. They're the Yankees of MLB, but with
a better GM. I that's probably accurate. I could see that.
Let's see if we have somebody calling it Krusher. You
here in an audio only I'm here on audio only.
I'm actually drying in my car right now. I feel like.
Speaker 2: Calling.
Speaker 3: John Newman reached out to me this week. Yeah. Well,
Newman reached out to me this week saying that we're
having some issues with possible co hosts that h if
I can maybe call in and kill a few minutes.
Speaker 1: So no, I appreciate you, buddy, You drive safely. Uh,
what's going on in your mind? What do you think
of Series one?
Speaker 3: Uh? I think what tops is going I think what
everybody's talking about are there are the parallels, right. They
got rid of the hobby only black one, and there's
a lot of complaining about that. I think if you
look at the parallel structure, they're really trying to conform
Tops's parallels with all the other brands of TOPS parallels
like Chrome Bowman, Chrome B Bowman, Draft Finest. You have
the one of one parallel, then the next level up
is the red parallel, which is number to five. Then
you have Orange to twenty five. You know the I
think everybody knows the standard TOPS Rainbow by now, and
for the longest time, the TOPS flagship kind of had
its own thing where you had like the Father's Day
to twenty five and the Mother's Day to twenty five,
and they've kind of removed those and installed the Top
standard rainbow. Another thing that they're doing, speaking of that rainbow,
is there's going to be separate hobby parallels and separate
retail parallels. So there's going to be a hobby only
one to five and a retail only number to five,
And the same thing with the Orange to twenty five
separate ones, same thing with the Gold to fifty, Green
to ninety nine, and do we really need this many
parallels that are numbered to the same thing. I mean,
this is something that I wrote about last year in
Hobby News Daily, that just the sheer number of parallels
in these products now and at the end of the day,
I don't think many collectors are gonna want these cards
in the long run.
Speaker 1: No, they devalue themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's the kind of there's the psychology
of pulling a low numbered card. But if you're just
pulling like a gold parallel number to fifty of some
left handed one inning relief pitcher or a backup catcher,
You're never gonna get rid of that card.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry you don't want that card.
Speaker 1: So a lot of truth to that. All right, Well,
I got to Orlando, who's jumping on screen with me,
so I'll let you drive, Chris, alright, thanks, I appreciate
you and as always, uh making the rest of us
look bad in our backgrounds the man Orlando, what's going on? Buddy?
Speaker 4: Hey, what's going on? Danny? I couldn't leave you alone
there stranded here on the show.
Speaker 1: Dude. I'm like Gilligan, you know, I just I just
go to the island. Do my three hour tour. How
are you?
Speaker 4: How are you doing great? Just over at my mom's
house here is going to take it at lunch in
a little while, and listening to the show, I figured,
you know what, I'll just hop on a little while.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, absolutely. I don't know how long I'm
going to go today. After last night's show, you know,
the these double headers, the nighttime flipover. I'm getting too
old for this, Orlando.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well next time, just text me, let me know
and I'll join you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. What's up? Yes, Steven, so real quick. Are you
a Montgomery Club person?
Speaker 4: No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm curious because somebody asked TJ asked about
the future of the Montgomery Club, and I'm curious for
people who have been members. I've heard a lot of
a lot of people talking about it going downhill in
the quality of what people are getting for their membership money.
So if you want to put that in the chat,
but let's talk about us.
Speaker 4: I used to be a member of this. I used
to be a member of the Stadium Club back in
the day that that was kind of what they called
it back then, and it was pretty good because they
would send you a lot of stuff, and it was
pretty limited. But I think the Montgomery Club has gotten
so big now that it's just you know, a lot
of stuff. But the quality of what they send you
now is not what they would send you like two
three years ago. And I know Mankini is a member
of the club and he always shares what he gets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not the same as it was. That's
where I've heard people say, Yeah, Reuben says, man, the
Orlando set beats everyone's. It does. He's actually he's actually
in Iowa, guys. It's a fake background. Yeah, yeah, no,
foll ball. It was actually a card Mentions episode every
other Friday night. It was not a hobby hotline that's
every Saturday morning on bench clar So what have you
picked up recently, Orlando? Where are you shopping these days?
I know I talked last night about what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm actually saving up money for Strongsville. You know,
I haven't really bought anything, just some minor things here
and there, you know, But really I'm holding up because
my boat right now are ready to kind of save
up and really concentrate on some more bigger cards versus
a lot of smaller cards, you know, like Mike Petty says,
you know, I want some of the meat for the burrito,
you know, not condiments.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So I got plenty of condiments, and I'm looking to
pick up some bigger cards. You know. I'm getting a
few cards granted.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I got to my Bob Uker grated last year and
it came out of seven and a half and I
was like, wow.
Speaker 1: That's a tough card to actually center.
Speaker 4: Well it's a high number with the you know, tough
wood border. But you know, things like that are you know,
I'm thinking about even possibly selling it now when the
thing is hot to you know, to get a big
card to strong Field. But really that's my goal to
get a big pre war card, hopefully Walter Johnson or
something like that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely speak and you can bring it into existence. We
have with us the one, the only John Mangi there.
Speaker 2: He is could fellow collectors all alone.
Speaker 1: No, I never never have colle I heard you're the
man with the inside word on the Montgomery Club.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't have any inside word. I'm a member.
Speaker 1: No, no, no inside word, you know what I mean.
So I've heard it's really gone downhill, would you?
Speaker 2: I would agree they don't really send anything anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, that would be not a good thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah. They used to send like were four little sets
a year, and you just get something unexpected. It was
really nice oftentimes with an autograph.
Speaker 2: I haven't gotten anything this year other than the complete set.
Speaker 1: Well what as TJ says that they only gave one
item in twenty twenty four, a special base set. Only
one item. That's unbelievable. Only difference between the Montgomery and
the regular sets was a special layer on the front.
And they gave early access to product. That's that's gone
way downhill.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's turned into more of an early access
to product thing. And since I don't buy a lot
of product, you know, that's that's.
Speaker 2: Not why I joined. I joined for the special sets,
which I really enjoy.
Speaker 1: Yes, So what are you collecting and working on these days?
What projects do you have.
Speaker 5: I've been going after some bigger cards lately and just
working on little I work on sets all the time.
I have near sets from I don't know, T two
O six on.
Speaker 2: I work on all kind of.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I always pick up some of the some
of the rookies in the NFL MLB.
Speaker 2: I work on those a little bit too. I collect everything.
Speaker 1: Man, So what should Orlando do with is Bob Yucker?
Should he sell it?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 4: Did I sell it down?
Speaker 5: You could?
Speaker 2: You could sell it and buy it right back in
a month.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's a seven and a half, so
I figured I could get like almost a grant for
that card already.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm not a seller, but
with the way prices are, you're almost stupid not to.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just ridiculous. If you saw what happened
to the Ricky Henderson cards.
Speaker 5: Uh, and then you know, like a month later, they're
they're back to where they were.
Speaker 4: And I don't have a problem buying a four. That's
gonna be nicely centered, that's gonna look, you know, just
as good as my seven and a half.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a lot of people doing that, selling
their nines and tens and downgrade in one grade and
and man, they're pocketing in a lot of cash. You
can buy all the stuff you want.
Speaker 1: Well, does this also come down to there really is
the card not the number?
Speaker 2: Well? You know, I don't Uh, I just did a
video on this.
Speaker 5: I don't understand the gigantic, the gigantic difference.
Speaker 2: Between you know, nines and tens or whatever.
Speaker 5: So a lot of collectors who don't really care about
the number are selling their tens.
Speaker 2: Or their nines and and picking up cards that they
really want.
Speaker 5: You know, my friend Rick has all these like PSA
nines of common players in the sixties, and he's selling
them for hundreds of dollars and buying you know, babe
Ruths and stuff.
Speaker 1: That's not a bad uh, not a bad upgrade.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so, because.
Speaker 1: That Ruth kit, I think is gonna make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not sure he'll I'm not sure he'll stay
a picture because he's such a good hitter.
Speaker 1: Nobody can do both. John, that's not possible.
Speaker 4: But I think that that's a good way to go
get rid of a lot of those high great cards
because you can pick them up so cheaply for you know,
in grades four or five.
Speaker 1: I've been on such a run of buying living Hall
of Famer in lower grades better I appear, and been
getting some unbelievable values and just building up the collection. Yeah,
I was talking last night. I don't know. Yeah, And
John I'm curious shoud go for a Bench Rookie of
Brett Rookie or it was the third Yeah or the
Jazz Rookie, Yeah, the yaz Rookies.
Speaker 5: What do you think, John Well, I think the surprisingly
I think the card that's most in demand out of
those is the Brett Rookie especially, you know, it's hard
to find him centered the seventy five set is susceptible
to stuff. The Bench Rookie I have always found to
be super undervalued my whole collecting light.
Speaker 2: I think that card should be worth way more.
Speaker 5: When you look at the difference between Nolan Ryan's Rookie
and card in the same set, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The Yeah Rookie card is is awesome. You know, you
can buy them anytime you want. There are a lot
of cards where you.
Speaker 5: Can buy anytime you want, right And so when I'm
when I'm spending my hobby dollars, I I and I
think Orlando is the same way. I'm trying to find
those cards I can't find every day. It's like when
you want to talk about fifty two Willie Mays, you
know Bowman, the fifty two Mickey Mantle tops, all these cards.
It's like you can go on eBay at any day
on any day, at any time, and you can find
at least ten of them anytime you want to spend
the money. But then there are all these cards that
you can go on eBay for six months and not
find one.
Speaker 2: And those are the cards.
Speaker 5: That you know, I try to pick up for the
for the most part, and sometimes there's just cards I always.
Speaker 1: Want to Sorry, John, is that because you already own
a lot of the other cards?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, probably yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I just, with all due respect, your
collections a little bit well known.
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is that if you go to card
shows or anywhere, I mean you see those fifties and
sixties and seventies vintage cards everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, sometimes, you know, after a while, after so many
years of collecting, you get kind of tired of seeing
those and most of them, like John said, either I
have them or I had them, and now you want
to go after stuff that really you don't see very often.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if you go to a card show where the
National it just blows my mind.
Speaker 6: I mean you'll see one dealer who will have twenty
seven nineteen sixty six Mickey mantles lined up there you
could choose, and it's just more exciting at this point.
Speaker 5: You know, I've seen these cards over and over all
my life and on YouTube, everybody shows them over and over,
these you know, these tops cards because that's the most popular.
So to me, it's exciting when I see a card
I've never seen before, It's like, I want to get
that one.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons I like Strongsville. I think
Strongsville's got a little bit of this of I don't
want to say more than the National, but it does
hold its own for a smaller show of rarer stuff.
I know there was things I found at Strongsville that
I did not find at the National a couple of
years ago, and that could just be hit or missed
depending on what dealers have at the time. But I
you know, I spout the love for Strongsville all the time.
If I'll tell everybody out there, if you haven't been,
go Yeah.
Speaker 4: The good thing about Strongsville is just it's like five
percent vintage and pre war. So most of the big
big dealers, I mean, they're going to go there because
they know that people like us are going to attend
that show.
Speaker 1: Right, it is for it is for the super nerd.
Speaker 4: Right right.
Speaker 5: So what do you guys think about the future of
vintage with younger collectors, modern collectors?
Speaker 2: Where do you think it's going?
Speaker 1: Orlando? You want to take it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: I mean I'm seeing it now. A lot of collectors,
you know, are getting a lot of the modern collectors
that you still would do breaking and stuff but kind
of getting out. A lot of them aren't even on
eBay or doing very little on I mean on YouTube anymore.
So I think a lot of them are moving to vintage.
I was even looking at a video yesterday one of
these you know flippers, Mary Gamble Gamble. She was even
getting a Mickey Mantle card. So I saw some of
these people, I'm going, you know, hey, they maybe they're
they're moving down and seeing some of these cards that
are going to be a lot more stable than the
Justin Herbert's that they've been picking up. So I do
think that not everyone, but there's gonna be a small
percentage of these guys that are gonna start getting into
vintage eventually, you know, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I was more comes next. I was watching her
video today. I enjoy I enjoy her. I think she
does a good job. I don't know why I enjoy her.
I don't really need to see her put on.
Speaker 2: Her makeup or whatever, but other than that, I enjoy it.
Speaker 5: But I saw some little kid, I mean some little
kid showing out six hundred and fifty bucks and buying
a card from her, and I'm like, oh my god,
how times have changed. I used to scrounge up seven
bucks to buy a dream card.
Speaker 1: I do believe that Vintage will always be where people
who have curiosity in the hobby and want to know
where stuff came from and have an appreciation for the
history of the sport, not just the cards. I think
that'll keep Vintage strong for forever. I think vintage was
popular in the eighties, popular in the nineties, and you know,
it may go up and down a little bit, but
you know that game can't be told without the vintage card.
Those players are are the fabric.
Speaker 5: My question always is do people care about the history
like you know my generation did, Because if you look
at some of the greatest players to ever play the
game Rogers hornsby George Sisler, a lot of these guys,
they you know, they just seem so undervalue you. If
you're bidding on auctions like you can get them cheap,
and these are some of the greatest players ever playing,
and you even even many of the Hall of Famers.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think there is, like Chris Seeker, but you know,
it's kind of I think it's a challenge to get
these these newer collectors to get into vintage, but I
think once they get into vintage.
Speaker 4: They'll get into the history of it. I think initially
the tough part is to get them to have interest
in vintage first. But once you get in it, you know,
it's like the the rabbit hole that you just can't
get out. Pre war is the same thing. Once you
get into that, you can't get out. You know, it
sucks you right in because there's so many different sets,
different things that you can look at, not just the
regular top issues.
Speaker 5: It always fascinates me with vintage football because you know,
sports fans are.
Speaker 2: So into stats. It's like, you know, baseball.
Speaker 5: Fans, Uh, they're guys they never saw play and what
do they do. They look at their stats to determine
if they should be in the Hall of Fame or not.
And in football, it's so impossible to compare modern players
with vintage players because they've added so many games.
Speaker 2: There were eras of the twelve game season.
Speaker 5: Then shortly after you know, it was Jimmy Brown's third year,
I think where they went from a twelve game season
to a fourteen game season, and then you know, later
on they went to the sixteen game season. Now we
have a seventeen game season. They changed all the passing
rules to open up the pass. So when you look
at the old players and you don't watch them on
film or your dad didn't teach you about.
Speaker 2: How phenomenal they were when they played, and you just look.
Speaker 5: At stats, well, all modern players, all modern quarterbacks, all
modern wide receivers you know, have the top stats. And
it really hurts the guys like Bart Starr and Johnny Andidis,
and especially playing in the pre Super Bowl era, right,
they don't have Super Bowls. So it's like vintage football
cards are just nothing there. You could pick them up
for nothing, aside from a few big ones.
Speaker 1: I mean even the Uniteds Wrookie, you're talking about the
fifty seven set, you're talking about the greatest quarterback ever.
I'm a huge fan of the fifty seven set, and
I think it's tremendously undervalue. I'm from Baltimore. I'm one
hundred percent buyas so, but you know, I do believe,
and I've bought and sold a couple of them, that
most people, even if you're a vintage baseball fan, you
should have a gym Bra, you should have you know,
certain players, you should have a Wilt or a Korean
and you know, not that you have to have everybody
in every sport, but I think most people who are
vintage baseball fan also respect the greats in the other sports.
And if your collection is stuff you like and tells
the story of players you've watched growing up, include the
other sports.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's why.
Speaker 5: You know, there's always been a handful of football cards
that always had tremendous value.
Speaker 2: You know, the Jim Thorpe and the Red Grange in
a thirty three Sport King set.
Speaker 5: Of course, that's a multi sports set maybe people worked
on because there were baseball players in it. You had
the Jim Brown rookie, you had the Bart Star rookie,
the Unitis rookie, you had the Joe Namath rookie, Walter Payton,
like those kinds of cards.
Speaker 2: But beyond that, you know, the value just isn't there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's very few actual you know, football cards that
are vintage or pre war. I mean there is the
Bronco Nogirski that's very expensive. But for the most part,
I mean, you could pick up I picked up a
new Rockney for you know, any great condition for you know,
one thousand dollars, a couple thousand dollars and those I
mean from the from that set, which is a tough,
tough set. And you know, if you pick up like
a Babe Ruth, like for example, from the thirty three
Galley in five, you know you're talking a card that's
gonna be worth you know, fifty thousand dollars. So it's
it's funny how that you know football is worth you know,
maybe of what baseball cards are worth.
Speaker 1: And that's ken Burns. I think he's responsible for that. Yeah,
I think they should play ken Burns on the little
bit the baseball.
Speaker 4: But a lot of it is what John says. It's
the stacks. I mean, if you look back in the days,
you know, Auto Graham was was huge.
Speaker 5: Otto Graham was Tom Brady before Tom Brady went to
ten straight championships and won six of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now I mean Tittle, Yeah, whye Tittle.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: These new collectors have no idea who Otto Graham is,
you know, and it's it's just.
Speaker 5: Crazy why a Tittle was like my god, I mean
he changed like the game like he was so unique
at the time.
Speaker 2: And then you look at the old Rams team too
with Norm Van Brocklin.
Speaker 5: Tom Fears, crazy legs, hirsh like that was the first,
I think great passing teams where they were mostly passing.
It was cutting edge for that time period. But if
you don't know history, like you don't know those things well.
Speaker 1: But in football also quarterbacks dominated so much. I think
that countries into vintage also.
Speaker 5: For it always blows my mind how defensive players don't
get any love whatsoever.
Speaker 2: A guy like TJ. Watt or you know all these
great ray Lewis, ed Reid. You're from Baltimore.
Speaker 1: I mean I was about to say, keep going, John,
keep going.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean I as a Steeler fan, collect those guys.
Speaker 2: They were so good.
Speaker 4: You know, me and Joe Green. You couldn't have been
any better than me. Joe Green. Yeah, be with the
commercials and everything.
Speaker 5: And me and Joe Green. He invented the gap defense.
I know the second half of the.
Speaker 1: Last would coke every week in honor of Yeah. Even
though I think it was no it was real plan.
I just want to get caught up on some comments. Here.
Here you go, John Terry Brownshaw, the original TV twelve,
A little bit of love for me, Me and Joe Green.
Although he hates being called me, and if you ever
see him, call him. He's still bigger than TJ. Says.
UH started recently. M vps used to be non quarterbacks, yes,
but the hobby love has has been dominated by court.
That's what I was talking about. Sammy Ball another great name,
slinging Sammy Ball.
Speaker 4: I released a video the other day of Gail Sayers. Well,
I think one of the most underrated UH running backs ever.
Speaker 2: Oh you know what, slinging Sammy Ball. That's the one
I was thinking about. Who who revolutionized the past? I
was I was misspeaking there?
Speaker 1: Well, United also, I mean United to Raymond Barry created
the two minute drive. UH created the real UH out
pattern where you catch it, you know, right right on
the sideline.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So I'm biased, Like I said, Uh.
Speaker 5: Well, look at look at Johnny Uniteds when his UH
when he set the record with forty seven straight games
with a touchdown pass. At one time, that was considered
to be like Joe Demaggio's fifty six game hitting streak
because it was a different game and that was unusual.
Speaker 2: Forty seven people thought would never be broken.
Speaker 5: When you look at Don Hudson's touchdown record at one time,
that was considered to be like Babe Ruth's home run record.
It was so insane. He caught a touchdown every fifth pass,
and he set rookie records. One of them wasn't broken
until Jefferson just broke it a few years ago. That's
how long it stood, with all the rule changes, with
all the rule changes and additional games. You know, he
never played in more than a twelve game season. He
played in eleven game seasons, not ten game seasons, nine
game seasons.
Speaker 1: Well, that's my whole thing on Uniteds. Also, it took
him more seasons to get to that touchdown mark. Yes,
And it's harder to come back every offseason and come
back for another season. You know, I think in some
ways it's easier to do it than less season.
Speaker 5: Well, you look at the melt blunt roll, You look
at what the melt Blunt roll did to receiver, you know,
Lynn Swan and those guys playing in the seventies, they
could get beat up the whole way down the field.
That's what made mel Blunt so dominant. He was big,
fast and strong and nobody he just took away one
half of the field. Once they changed that role where
you could just touch him for five yards and had
to let that run free, then what happened, Steve Largent
happened Jerry Rice happened like a whole different game, right.
You weren't allowed to beat that receiver up. What Gene
Atkinson and Gene what's his name from the Raiders, Atkinson
and Tatum, what they did to Lynn Swan would be
a crime today. They might get thrown in jail and
they certainly be banned from the league. Look at the
quarterbacks back then, I mean they were hit. You know,
Johnny Unitas took a beating every game in the head.
Oh he didn't take much of a beating though, because
he had the greatest offensive lineman to ever live, mister Parker.
Speaker 2: Parker was impossible to get around.
Speaker 4: Tackle tough guys back then, and even even some quarterbacks
that didn't get hit like fran Tarkenton Man. He was
one of the best running running quarterbacks ever. And again
another quarterback that nobody talks about, fran Tarkenton Ken.
Speaker 2: Hey, I want to go back for a second. Do
you know how do you know how me and Joe
Green became me?
Speaker 5: When he was young, he was small, and he was bullied,
and he used to get beat up and stuff, and
like in high school. Once one year he grew all
of a sudden and got real big, and uh, he
always had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder.
So he went back and sought out everybody to beat
him up and beat them up. He would like get
him under the bleachers or whatever. So when he came
into the league, he had like an attitude, Oh.
Speaker 1: That's well here, then I'll throw this up. You can
pick up Dick Knight try and lane rookie cards for
two dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. Another all time grant.
Speaker 5: He's still he's still what third or fourth on the
all time interception list still and the top guys or safeties,
so he's the he's really the top cornerback that just
played corner because you have n toel m Tel was
Deon Sanders Sanders before Deon say and.
Speaker 1: Once again, look at the stats. We'll get past this
per interception and stuff like that. And that's that's really
where some of these guys separate themselves because it was
a different league and they dominated when there was less
coming up. Rex makes a great point here. Rules about
hitting the quarterbacks just as impactful as the wide receiver
in cornerback rules probably probably true. I mean you you
had to when they say stand in there and take one,
they meant stand in there and take one. It was
none of this. You can't follow in the quarterback, you know,
yeah them too hard, don't hit them too high on him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were different rules. I mean, you couldn't just
throw away the ball back in the days like they
did today and things like that.
Speaker 5: I want to tell you something back during the Still
Curtain Defense, and you should go watch some of those games.
Speaker 2: It's hilarious.
Speaker 5: They when they played Cincinnati, they knocked Kenny Anderson out
of every single game they played.
Speaker 2: He couldn't last a game with those guys. They beat
the hell out of him. But that was part of
the game back then.
Speaker 1: How about this guy, speaking of tough, Ronnie Lotte destroyed
anyone over the middle and also had a part of
his finger amputated so he could play in a game.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: One of the craziest stories. I tell it every time
I hear his Gail Sayers underrated now, not when he played,
but that speaks insanely good, right, that speaks to how
underrated he is because people who saw him. You know,
I think it's like Bo Jackson, no matter how good
we talk about Bo Jackson, if you saw him play,
you have a different respect for his athletic event. You
had to see him. And sometimes sports are like that.
And you know what we consider vintage today? You know,
are the eighties going to be considered vintage in twenty
or thirty years? I mean, is that fair?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: The thing is, this is interesting because I was just
thinking about it because somebody did a video their top
vintage cards and they were from the nineteen ninety and
they were like, well, I don't care what you say,
is vintage the nineties or vintage to me? So vintage
can be different things to different people. The thing is,
though there were set parameter back in the day for
what was vintage. It's like I can't call nineteen eighty
pre war unless you want to talk about the Iraqi War.
So the parameters were always up till including nineteen seventy
eight for vintage, and then a lot of people they
wanted the Ricky Henderson rookie card to be included in vintage,
so they move it up on their own. The nineteen
eighty and nineteen eighty actually makes more sense to me
than nineteen seventy eight because that was the last year
of just the tops domination, and that makes perfect sense
to me.
Speaker 2: But you know is the nineteen eighties are now.
Speaker 5: Vintage and nineteen nineties are now vintage as far as
eras are concerned. But you know, I don't know, like
it's you know, it's up for the hobby to decide.
Speaker 1: Because somebody who does the research, who's young or now
and does research on players in the eighties, does research
on players in the nineties. Isn't that what we were
talking about at the beginning that we want vintage lovers
to do, you know, is to learn the game before
their time. So I just want to, you know, keep
the perspective for everybody in here. When you see people
collecting eighties and nineties, look how old dale, you know,
maybe cut a kit a break if he wants, you know,
a Wade Bogs rookie. You know, that might not be
the sexiest card for a lot of us, but that's
a great player. Yeah, and that's that might be a
great rookie card for somebody who just learned about Tony
Gwen or you know.
Speaker 2: Whoever, And it's very vintage for a young person exactly.
Speaker 5: You know, maybe there needs to be a sliding scale
like there is with cars. You know, you can get
classic plates once it hits ten years old, you can
get antique plates once it hits twenty years old.
Speaker 2: Maybe it needs to be a sliding scale.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe we need a new name for the era.
Somebody says it's like classic rock. Classic rock stays the
sixties and seventies, you know kind of era. So maybe
we need a new name because I don't like junk
wax jump.
Speaker 2: I hate I hate that term it is.
Speaker 5: And let me tell you something with what some of
these PSA tens are selling for any junk any more? No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, real, Like getting back to what we were talking
about on Miss the Deacon Jones head slap that was classic, Yeah,
I mean that that thing.
Speaker 4: Would get what a beast he was Yeah, he could.
Speaker 1: Give a concussion one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that whole line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the treasures I was always told growing up, vintage
is twenty years or older and antique is one hundred year.
Those numbers seem to make sense. Sure, what war do
you mean in pre war? That's a fair question, John,
You want to answer that, Well.
Speaker 5: The hobby has defined it as a pre World war too,
but you know, there were there were lots of war,
so you you could uh that that term it's just
a it's just a historical term that was always used
to define anything before World War Two.
Speaker 1: Once again, if we look at the history of production
of cards, the vintage ending when Flair and Dunruss came
along is a natural line of demarcation. I think there's
ally something to be said for pre war being right
around the Bowman tops iterations and being before that. I
look at vintage as starting really maybe forty, maybe thirty
three somewhere in there, and before that I consider prey.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you can call it the nineteen forties decade,
the scarcity era. Because of the war, there were so
few sets made and there were gaps, you know. That's
why when you get into the forty eight Bowmen or
the forty nine leaf like collectors had to wait a
long time until a product came out like that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Reuben says, let's call it retro vintage error for
the eighties.
Speaker 2: Retrore you go, that works. I like that, that has
a nice ring to it.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is interesting. TJ says, breaking news, not to
change the topic, but now there's news coming out about
another Dallas show robbery. That is.
Speaker 4: Well, Mike was there yesterday and I think Chris from
Missouri and all these guys are there today.
Speaker 1: Are you pointing fingers, Orlando, No, I'm.
Speaker 4: Just saying I'm a text These guys see they know anything, you.
Speaker 2: Know what, you know what's sad.
Speaker 5: Somebody was texting me this morning and he's going to
a show and he said his wife said to him,
are you sure you're okay taking that much money? And
he said, yeah, it's safe or whatever, and she's like,
that's not what I heard about shows. So even like
people's wives are hearing how that it's danger is and
that's sad.
Speaker 1: That is sad. Well, it speaks to the size of
the shows. There are more large regional shows than ever
in the hobby. It used to be you know, for
all intents and purposes, more or less the national You
had a couple shows and then it was a hotel
ball room, you know, and and that was it. Now
you have really decent sized shows year round around the country,
and the amount of money on the floor of some
of these shows, in product and in cash is just
way higher than I think it's efferent.
Speaker 5: It's unbelievable to see the transition because shows were dead dead,
you know, card shops were dead.
Speaker 2: Shows are dead. Now they're booming. They're everywhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean right now, it's just the hobby's become
more national news and you see it more on the
regular news and just big stories like all these things
that are happening with the robberies and stuff that's coming
out and becoming you know, big major news. Yeah, and
I think we're getting a lot of attention, and you know,
it's good and bad for the hobby. And sometimes, you know,
the downside is is that that you know that a
lot of times they focus on all the bad stuff
that's happened in the hobby, the fraud, the rip offs
and those type of things, you know. But I think
it's you know, we've always had people doing this at
in the business, there's always been fraud, there's always been
stealing and all that. I just think it's become in
a bigger scale. You know, looks like some of these
are more planned out, and it's just become more you know,
there's more media out there. I mean not just YouTube,
it's just everywhere, all over the media.
Speaker 5: I think I was just gonna say the paradox today
is the hobby is the best it's ever been, and
it's the worst it's ever been.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I call the hobby hobby high
school all the time, because it's a it's a bunch
of people who got older, grew up, some of us matured,
some of us didn't. And uh there's always the kid
who got went to the principal's office, and it's it's
a shame that that, you know, there's still goes. How
about something a little happier. Captain uh Coptor says card
collecting is based on cinnamon, as it should be. If
you're younger, you may have sentiment for nineties cards from
your childhood. The players in era you grew up in
absolutely could agree one. You know, if there was a
player you grew up loving as a kid that you
know that you don't need to worry about what we
call the error to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: We got Chris Carlin jumping in. We'll go a quad
box here. What's going on?
Speaker 8: I was having trouble getting on.
Speaker 1: How are you doing good? I wanted to catch up
with some stuff with you. I know you just went
to the Upper Deck conference.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so pretty cool that even though I'm in a
new gig with PSA, We're still able to uh to
head out there and hang out with those guys. So
I think it is one of the few conferences that
is a little different than a normal trading card show
or things along those lines. Really focuses on trying to
help the dealer understand what's going on in the market
and how to be the best small business possible. So
what they do is bring in experts on loss prevention
and small business banking and things along those lines. So
it's not just here's the new product, by this, by this,
by this, And it's pretty cool that there were every
every year that they've done it. I think it started
off with about one hundred and fifty shops, and then
two hundred shops, and then two hundred and fifty. Well
they're up to three hundred and fifty shops now that
are coming to this thing, so it felt a little tight,
but it felt great to see dealers from literally all
over the world. I saw Michael Move from Shanghai, Rica
and China. I saw Honders from Cool Card se and Sweden,
shops from the UK, a lot of them from Canada,
and it was just a really good event. So it
was excited to be a part of that. And it's
cool to see as well that even though Upper Deck
is dealing with some of the situations that have come
up from a very aggressive competitor and fanatics in terms
of grabbing licenses, they're still pivoting and producing some really
compelling content. So their new neo pets game is kind
of interesting. But what I'm really excited to see what
they do with a license of DC, because there really
hasn't been a manufacturer that really took that license super serious.
And some of the product offerings I collect a lot
of our products, Marvel products. I think that their DC
offerings are going to be very solid.
Speaker 1: All right, Chris, I want to follow up with some
other stuff that I know you put in the chat
John Orlando, you guys are the best. You absolutely helped
me save today's show and we were going to get
in the whole hour. So I'll let you guys go.
Thank you, enjoy your days, and Chris and I will
thanks guys. We'll take it off there you guys.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Yeah, thanks anyway.
Speaker 1: So I also wanted to give you a couple of
minutes before we run out of time. I know that
you wanted to talk about somebody who is close to
you in Jack Hoffman, and I want to give you
a minute to talk about that. Talk about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Early in my marketing career, I got a piece
of advice do the right thing and let the brand
go along for the ride. And when I saw Jack Hoffman,
this seven year old with pediatric brain cancer, getting into
a Nebraska spring game and running a touchdown, it was
so moving and so pure and what sports is supposed
to be. And I knew that it would empower my
brand if I could use that power of the upper
deck to help tell this story and create a collectible
for this young man. So how the card came to
be is pretty incredible because photography is so critical in sports,
and not a lot of people even knew that Jack
was going to be coming in to do this touchdown
on the family didn't even know until the Friday before
the game, and they just kind of put together what
they had. Jack's uncle played for Nebraska, and they had
some of his pants, and he was a smaller guy,
so they used his pants, and then he had an
autograph Rex burkhead jersey, so that's what he wore out there.
And then he had this little Franklin plastic helmet that
was almost more of a keepsake than something you would
actually wear in a game. And when he was getting dressed,
the Nebraska football team made a circle around him and
made that his locker room on the sideline so Jack
could get dressed in his gear. But the real kicker
was the image was taken by his father that we
used for the trading card. And imagine being a dad
in that moment with eighty thousand fans screaming all for
the same team, watching your son do this remarkable thing
and being able to wear with all the snap a
good photo. So yeah, Jack's cause is one that's near
and dear to me, But it really served as a
way for me to change the way that at upper Deck,
we marketed goodwill programs, and so after creating Jack's card
and raising several hundred thousand dollars for the cause, we
looked at what else could we do to help young
athletes inspiring people. So we created a program called Heroic Inspirations,
and I think there are about twenty cards that we
did before I had left. If you go to Upper
Deck's headquarters, they have something called the Wall of Inspiration,
which is really cool. It shows all those kids. But
seeing Jack past this week was really tough because he
was in remission and his cancer was supposed to be
gone in many cases, we thought, and unfortunately it came
back very aggressively and took my friend so very tough
to hear. Prayers and thoughts to the Huffman family, but
it just goes to show you that cancer is a
tricky one and it has no remorse, and uh comes
hard and fast, and it's it's just tough to beat.
So prayers to Jack and his family absolutely and.
Speaker 1: May his memory be a blessing. Uh My wife is
a survivor, and I say, proudly moving on from there. Yeah,
the the p s a world. Yeah, I gotta I
gotta hit you with this week's or news. You guys,
Evidently when things are on fire, people want to ship
to uh to UH vault and send a lot of
stuff in.
Speaker 8: And uh man, yeah, really.
Speaker 1: There is a natural connection there between people being scared
and wanting the feeling of their stuff in a vault.
What do you think and what's going on?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean watching the wildfires this week. Well, you know,
I've been in this and I've seen people lose their
collections to floods. I've seen them lose it to theft.
I've seen them lose it to tornadoes and hurricanes. But
the fire was crazy because it really hit a residential area,
an affluent residential area, and I saw some people who
had literally lost their entire collections. And as a collector,
it's so sad to see because we know how hard
it is to put together collections and that we put
our heart and soul into them. So whatever you get
back from an insurance agency isn't going to be a company,
isn't going to be what you really put into it.
So I mean there, it does make you think that
it is important to have your cards graded, because if
you don't, the insurance company will give you usually that
lower value, whereas if you could say, hey, I had
a PSA five of this, a PSA seven of this,
a PSA ten of that, there's market values that go
right along with that. So recovery is a little bit
better and getting a max payout is a little bit better.
But really where I was blown away this week was
the vaulting and seeing a five hundred pound fireproof safe
literally melted, because those fireproof safes are really designed to
last for a couple hours until the flames are extinguished.
If it's a fire that is burning out of control,
whatever's in there is going to get cooked. The safe
becomes an oven, and it's heartbreaking to see, Like you
think you did the right thing, you invested in this
to keep your collection safe. Really made me realize the
importance of vaulting services. So and quite frankly, I'm not
just trying to pimp the PSA vault like I think
you need to keep your collection in different places. You
should not have it all in the same place, you know,
keep a little bit here, a little bit there. For me,
it's hard to put everything in there because I like
to look at my cards. I even wear my cards
sometimes on a necklace. So I keep the fun ones
with me, but the rest it makes a lot of
sense to store in a vault like the PSA vault,
because you do have the freedom to get it out
at some point. You could sell if you like, and
there's gonna be more functionality at it as well to
make it even more engaging. So yeah, it's it's a
pretty compelling reason to vault your cards, even though you
love to hold them in your hands. Uh, it's you
still can see them and access them. It's it's just
a safer play.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When I when I heard that the mail room
was actually the backup at PSA, it made perfect sense.
And I was so glad that in the explanation they
actually said it was the mail room because that it
makes total and complete sense. So glad, glad that hopefully
everybody in the California and LA area is safe. And
that's the lives are far more important. But for the
collections and momento you said, the sentimentality if it's we
spend our life putting together, whether it's you know, collections
or whatever, it is, the money money never even so
that's right, Yeah, absolutely, all right, Well, Chris, I know
it's a short one with you today, but I'm glad you.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my apologies again. I've gotta get off to the baseball.
Gave it out, but I appreciate talking with you for
a little bit. Danny, You're the best.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, I appreciate it and good seeing you and
I'll talk to you soon, all right, take care, take care.
All right, guys, So we're gonna wrap it up and
take this show home. I appreciate everybody who jumped on.
A big shout out to Orlando. Definitely a national treasure.
John Manginie, Chris Harris, Chris Carlin ended up being a
lot of guests today, so it was it was an
absolute pleasure. Hobby Hotline, Episode three eight. I think we're
gonna call it a day, guys. Appreciate everyone. Have a
wonderful holiday weekend. Thank you very much. Gordon, Uh, everybody, Uh,
enjoy yourselves this week. Definitely have some fun. Talk to
you later. Take care.
Speaker 8: M m m m hmm.