Speaker 1: What's going on? Good morning everybody, Well morning on the
West Coast. It's eight am out here in California. Some
of you guys have a little bit of a head
start on me, but good morning. We are here with
Mike of junk Wax, Hero, Adam of Splendid Sports, and
the one and only Doctor Beckett.
Speaker 2: How you guys doing great? All right?
Speaker 1: So we have a lot that we can go into today,
But the topic that I wanted to get into was
kind of are we in a new sports card bubble?
And there are a few reasons that that comes to mind.
I listened to Chris Hose's HOJ cast and he's been
calling it a bull market for a while.
Speaker 2: I think, right, yeah, it's his word, and.
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely frothy for sure, and so I think
I wanted to take a look at the first time
I started kind of thinking about that was something that
Adam said, and I agree with Adam on this comment,
and I want to get his reaction when we come back.
Speaker 2: And then I want to go around the around the
horn and see if you.
Speaker 3: Guys starting to realize that it's almost like twenty twenty
one again and it's a little different you know, it's
not the exact same cards that are going crazy. Some
some you know iconic cards are doing the same thing
they did. Now, history does repeat itself. Nobody knows if
it's going to be just like the last time, and
next month or two months we're going to go straight
down again on those cards. But I made a decision myself.
I'm not going to be buying any big cards, at
least for the rest of the year and maybe longer
than that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I say the term because, or you could say expensive
because you know, everyone has a different budget in the hobby,
So an expensive card for someone out there might be
one hundred thousand dollars. For someone else, it might be
ten thousand. Someone else it could be one hundred bucks.
Whatever that is. You know, it is for the person.
But for me, I've decided I'm not doing I might
not buy any cards. To be honest with you, I
have a lot of the cards that I've always wanted.
I have many things to do in my collection other
than buying new cards. I have to organize. I have
to rehold or some cards. I have to free some
cards from some slabs that I want to put in
my own slabs. I mean there is for any amount
of time I have on this hobby, I have plenty
of other things I can spend it on other than
researching buying cards, trying to eBay. I've deleted all my
eBay save searches. This is not that I don't believe
in the sports card market long term or anything like that,
but to me, it certainly feels like we're back in
early twenty twenty one right now, and I don't want
anything to do with buying cards right now at these
level of prices.
Speaker 1: All right, So, Adam, I know your next follow up video,
you kind of were like, I don't want to come
across as negative. I don't think you sounded negative there.
I just thought you were telling your truth. So where
do you stand by those comments?
Speaker 4: Do you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think you need to walk them
back at all. I do. I don't follow up on
what you had.
Speaker 2: To say there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I can't stand watching myself talk. Yeah that
was rough, but that was more of a personal choice
based on where I'm at with my collection and the
prices that we're seeing on some cards was like the
icing on the cake. So yeah, I'm definitely not a
doomsday or on the sports card market. Like I think
some people in the comments called me, which is okay.
I love love cards, love the hobby. But yeah, a
lot of that That video kind of got prompted. I
saw where the eighty nine Griffy Upper Deck PSA ten
was selling over four thousand dollars and I was kind
of shocked at that. So that kind of prompted that video.
And yeah, I'm still not buying big cards, but again
that's just where I'm at personally. But you know, I
like seeing other people buy cards.
Speaker 2: Now, Mike, have you.
Speaker 1: Thought about slowing down your buying or big card buying?
And I'm saving doctor Beckett for last for a reason.
Have you adjusted what you're doing at all recently?
Speaker 2: Mike, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 5: I think that the biggest part of this bubble is,
as commenters have said, many other people have said, is
more iconic bigger cards. You're not seeing the same thing
that happen in twenty twenty early twenty twenty one, which
is everything skyrocketing and value. You're mostly seeing the rarer
items go up at an alarming rate. And I think
that that's where I've kind of slowed down. I bought
some stuff at the National, and I've slowed down the
big stuff since the National and probably will continue to
unless I find amazing deal.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Out of anyone in the history of the hobby, I
don't know if anybody has studied and tracked the prices
as closely as you, doctor Beckett. So I'm very curious
what do you think about the current market, but also
if you could shed some light in historically when you've
seen times where there were spikes or there were times
that there were dips, because there have been dips at
least in certain areas of the market. What are some
things historically that as you watched prices and tracked prices
that you noticed were kind of trigger points or when
things happened, what were the correlation for a statistics guy.
Speaker 4: Thanks Greg, Yeah, basically, what happened in nineteen eighty that
was a bubble. What happened in eighty seven that was
a bubble. What happened in the mid nineties that was
a bubble. So there's been other bubbles, but I like
to think of it as bubbles plural, not like the
hobby is one big giant spotlight, but it's like a
bunch of led lights that are clustered together, and there's
certain things that you could put out or that go
go or brighter or dimmer. But the whole hobby is
rarely hot at the same time, and people move around
from something that they think is a little too hot,
little too perhaps overvalued, little too too many people chasing
it supply and demand. But we're in a situation where
people need to not buy cards that they think are overpriced.
You know, when I was more of a serious dealer collector,
I bought everything that I saw there was a good deal,
you know, And now people don't look for a good deal.
They look for their card, and their card that's on
their lists is the same card that's on a lot
of people's lists, and it gets bit up to where
so every one of those eighty eighty seven there was
a run up. If something doubles overnight, you know, the
faster something goes up, the more easily it can come down.
If it's going up slightly, you know, a little bit
each month, that doesn't happen anymore. It something gets a
new world record price and maybe it's doubled. Those are
the cards that can easily go down in another in
an extreme fashion. The things that go up, So I
think hopefully instead of thinking of one big bubble, we're
thinking of certain things get too hot and I need
to back off from them and look for something that's
not Just like the arrows of the old magazine, arrows
didn't mean it was going up. It meant it went up.
So things that had already gone up when people are
chasing them, they chase it until it's too high, and
that particular bubble can either pop or it can go
back to and a lot of times it goes back
to more than it was at the beginning, but not
to the full price. So I think I would say
you know that, don't your your buying habits. You're reflecting
on your buying habits, and you're taking a break from
some of the things you're chasing that have gotten pricing.
And if enough people do that, the price goes down
and then you can jump back in. There's always been
an ebb and flow this, but there would there would
never be a crash if things went up five percent
a month or five percent a year. But if things
go up double one month, it's it can go quite
a bit down and still people that bought it more
than a month ago who've been brought it out to
sell it could still make money.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's such a good point that, you know,
the cryptocurrency thing where things triple in a week and
then they go down fifty percent the next week, and
then they quadruple the next week.
Speaker 2: There is so much truth to that. Now.
Speaker 1: A couple of people have been asking in the comments.
I'll go to you, Adam, because one of them was
kind of directed towards you. Are you referring to vintage cards,
modern cards, all cards when you talk about the fact
that you think that maybe things have gotten a little
bit carried away, because I think, like doctor Beckett just said,
there might be certain bubbles in the market, but does
it mean that the whole market is in a bubble?
Speaker 2: Maybe? Maybe not.
Speaker 1: And then John three D and Dylan just said, well,
I mean, isn't there a bigger collector base than there
was a few years ago?
Speaker 2: So could that have something to do with it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think I was talking more about certain cards, but
I would say if it had to choose between vintage
and modern, I guess I was looking more modern. Although
you know, I saw in Card Ladder the pre war
index that they have there is at an all time
high for pre war even higher than like you know,
twenty twenty one or any of that stuff. Vintage. The
vintage index is not at an all time high, but
it's up there pretty good. But you know, with that,
that's so true with doctor Beckett said now about how
things don't go up slowly, that's what surprised me the
most about that Griffy card. I hadn't looked at it
in a while, and I remember what it was like,
a two thousand dollars card in a PSA ten, like
a few months back, and then three months later it's
selling consistently at four thousand, And that's what really to
me was hard to wrap my head around. How does
a card with forty four hundred copies in a PSA
ten double in price? So but yeah, I guess those
are the days we're in now where things don't go
up steadily so to speak. They just double almost in
a month or two. And then I don't know, really
why is it? I guess going to that next question,
there probably is a lot more collectors, is a new
batch of people coming in, and that Griffy card was
the one they remember as a kid, and it's now
selling at that price because there's a lot of new
people that wanted it for us, that have you know,
been looking at that card for a long time and
see where the price is. I don't think we would
buy it at four thousand when we just could have
gotten it three months ago at two thousand or twenty
five hundred. But if someone's coming in cold and saying,
what's the price of an eighty nine Griffy PSA ten
four thousand, Okay, let's do it, you know, I think
that might be some of that oudam.
Speaker 4: One quick clarification. A lot of the new people coming
in are not classic collector. They're more on along the
lines of investors. They're they're late to the party, they're
jumping in, they don't have the education, and they're saying, hey,
this is what's hot. Things are going up. I'm gonna
I'm gonna buy that. But my point is that I
don't want those people to leave. I think those people
need to see the nuance of the hobby and instead
of of a bright, huge bullmark and everything's going up,
think of it as a dimmer switch. You know, when
things get too bright, you need to you need to
turn it down a little bit and the turning down
happens naturally in the laws of supply and demand in economics.
When more come out and more people, uh, you know,
then the price goes down because people say, Wow, that's
that's too expensive. That's a natural ebb and flow, and
that's that's like a safety valve or a relief relief
out that brings it back to the equilibrium of This
really ought to be a hobby for collectors buy collectors,
and I don't want it to get hijacked by huge
money people that bid up the great cards of the hobby.
Speaker 1: Mike, what's your reaction to this, I mean, do you
think that do you think that because there are areas
that aren't going up, there are areas right now that
are going down.
Speaker 2: Within the hobby, right.
Speaker 1: I mean I just did a video the other day
and you could buy a PSA five out fifty seven
alk line for cheap.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like but the big cards, and that's what doctor
Becker was talking about a second ago, some of these
big cards of you know, that's where the light is
shining the brightest at the moment.
Speaker 2: What's your thought on that, Mike so al Kline.
Speaker 5: I don't think has a big future in terms of collecting.
I don't think people are saying new people in the
hobby who are in their twenties, thirties, forties are coming
in and saying I need an alk link. That's just
not happening. They are saying, I need Tangerfy Junior, I
need Mickey Mantle, I need the big time athletes that
whose stories carry across generations and everybody may not remember them,
but they know a lot about them. And even the
Ken griff Junior eighty nine upper deck autographed card has
doubled in value in the last six to twelve months
or so, which is crazy. Like Adam said, they're forty
four hundred and the ten. There are thousands of them
that are autographed to many thousands of them, and just
an autograph in a PSA eight with a ten autograph
has doubled in under a year.
Speaker 1: And it reminds me sort of of like the what
to allude to an example of what you were saying
about new people to the hobby going to Ken Griffy Junior,
you know, going to guys like show Hey, going to
a Mickey Mantle, even if you're into vintage, because you know,
if you look at sports teams. You know, somebody says
I want to start following baseball. They tend to go
after the Yankees, the Red Sox, the the big market
teams like that, and the big market teams in cards
are those premier names and the premier names do it
does seem like those are the ones that are going
up crazy. But it's also interesting to me that they're
going up while other stuff is going down, Like some
stuff is going down right now.
Speaker 5: So you're like Dan's comment there about cracker Jack cards,
It's not only iconic players and iconic cards. It's iconic sets,
Crackerjack cards nineteen fifty two tops, things like that are
skyrocketing and value.
Speaker 4: Too because they're being increasingly talked about. And I'm not
going to blame content creators, but I mean, if something's
being talked about, you come into the hobby, say, hey,
that must be where the action is. Well, it is
where the action is. It is where the action was,
but nobody's talking about where the action will be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so how much of this is to
blame on content creation? Because one of the things I
think about is what percentage of people who are actually
in the hobby even pay attention to at least YouTube. Now,
I know Instagram has a whole content creator base and
you know all the different platforms. Do is that as
big a part of it or is it? Are we
over estimating how much of the blame goes there? I
don't know, Adam, do you think that do you think
that the content creation that Instagram and the YouTube is
blowing up things like Crackerjack cards and show Hey cards, and.
Speaker 2: How much is to blame there?
Speaker 3: I think Actually I've heard people say that, you know,
only a small, very minute percentage of the hobby watches
any YouTube or social media or it consumes any anything
like that. I actually I think that's understated. I think
there's a lot of people. I don't know what the
percentage is, but I think there's a huge percentage of
people that that are being influenced. That's not a bad term,
that's just their buying decisions are being affected by podcasts
and YouTube channels. I mean, you think I want to
give an example, Cajun Cardboard he created and that he's
a very sharp, well spoken guy and makes videos I
think almost every day, and he's essentially dedicated his whole
channel to Michael Jordan cards, I mean for the most part,
and that's great. I think that's awesome. I think that's
the type of content that we need more of in
the hobby and a commitment to that. You know that
it's a lot of work to do that, but someone
like that, just one example. I think that makes a
huge difference. I mean, look at I'm not saying he's
one hundred percent the reason, but look at what Michael
Jordan cards are doing on fanatics collect. Every time I
go on Instagram, I see card Ladder reporting a new
Michael Jordan card. Most of them I didn't even know existed.
Inserts that I never even heard of that are hitting
all time highs day after day after day. Not the
eighty six Fleer all the time. It's like, you know,
power in the Key and all these cards I never
even knew existed. I think that's one example that it
makes a huge difference. There's more people, I mean, just guys,
your channels combine. I mean, think about how many people
you reach with that, and think about the whole community
on YouTube. I mean, even a channel that gets one
hundred views right on a video, that's one hundred views
times how many channels are out there that are reaching
all these different people. I think it's making a huge difference.
Speaker 4: Nice I'm not blaming content creators. I'm giving them credit
when they're bringing honest passion to As long as it's
honest and it's passionate, that that gets it gets that
can go viral. What I don't like is, you know,
people are if they're being too self serving. But when
it's honest passion like cag and Cardboard, I mean, I
think he's not reading a script, he's speaking from the
heart and he's got analytical chops to back it up.
I like that kind of stuff, but people still need
to do their own due diligence.
Speaker 1: Now let me ask you, doctor Beckett, because back in
the day you were the content creator, you had the articles,
you had the what's hot what's cold at the you know,
at the front end of the Becket. How I mean,
how difficult of a responsibility was that when you were
one of the primary sources of that. And I know
what you did is you extrapolated data and you used
where the up arrows and that's what's creating the hot
and what's got the down arrows is probably the not
And I get that, but there is a responsibility with that,
right of course, Like I.
Speaker 4: Say, honest passion, you know, that's come coming from you know, helping,
you know, promote the whole hobby, you know, and telling
it like it is. You want to emphasize the positive.
But you know, we allso had a cold list. Yeah,
the hot list and the cold list, those were editorial.
The price guide was analytical. Was was was data driven.
There was there was much more editorial selection and discussion
rather than analysis of the hot.
Speaker 2: Lik Now, Mike, let me turn something to you.
Speaker 1: So when I'm talking about a card or a player
that I'm collecting, I just showed my autogram run Like legitimately,
it doesn't even cross my mind for a single second
that that might impact what other people might buy. Like,
I like autogram because I think he's undervalued. I think
football cards are undervalued. The guy has championships and MVPs.
Speaker 2: And all this stuff.
Speaker 1: He was one of the original quarterback goats, and his
cards are affordable, and I like the looks of them.
I think they're beautiful cards. And so I lay out
my autogram run, you know, fifty to fifty five, and
I go, these are awesome. And then you do occasionally
have people go this guy's pumping football cards and I'm like,
I just love football cards.
Speaker 2: Do you ever have.
Speaker 1: To think about that, Mike, when you're making content? Do
you think, Wow, I have to be careful that I
I don't pump something accidentally or is that just not
something that goes through your mind?
Speaker 2: Because it doesn't go through mind.
Speaker 5: It has never gone through my mind, and I can't
imagine that it's going to. If people are interested in
the cards that I'm interested in, that's great. But I'll
give you an example. Adam did a video where he
showed off some Pedro Martinez nineteen nineties refractors, and I
was like, oh man, those are amazing. I need those,
and I went to eBay to look. And all it
would take is one other person who saw Adam's video
at the same exact time to go and if the
two of us are bidding up rare Pedro Martinez nineteen
nineties refractors, then that market can in the very short term,
go up. You've created new comps, You've got two or
three cards that it can happen. It's a weird confluence
of events when somebody is showing really cool rare cards
and you can see something some sort of impact from
that well.
Speaker 1: And I think you can also see some impact because
on these ultra rare cards with low populations only, it
only takes a couple of people to want to get
in the market to really affect the price.
Speaker 2: And I'm wondering if that's part.
Speaker 1: Of the reason why, I mean, Orlando said it in
the chat earlier, like pre war stuff and rare you know,
stuff is absolutely on fire, and it does feel like
a lot of people are moving towards the rare stuff
over the iconic stuff. But then the King Griffy Junior
is like the least rare card of all time and
it's doubled in price in the last six months. I mean, Adam,
do you think that do you think that the rareness
factor is a part of the price because I don't
think the King Griffy Junior plays into that. But it
feels to me like rare stuff is what's going nuts.
So how do we use the King Griffy Junior example
in line with that? Or am I am I out
of touch and it's not that's not the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, That's why I couldn't wrap my head around that card.
So that was a specific example, because to your point,
a lot of the stuff, even the Michael Jordan cards
I was talking about, a lot of those, are numbered
to one hundred or fifty, you know, so there's not
that many of him out there. And to Mike's point,
it doesn't take a lot for a card like that
to set at all time high in an auction, as
long as you know, especially when you have I mean
when I say marketing, I've been doing marketing for twenty years.
I believe in marketing when it's done right and honestly
it works. And the Fanatics marketing I think has already
started to work, even though they don't even have the
football and the basketball licenses I guess officially yet, or
they haven't put out cards yet that I think the
marketing that you're seeing, I mean, Tom Brady has card shops,
now that's pretty big. I heard the other day on
a podcast Stacking Slabs with Drake, who's a huge Peyton
Manning collector. He now is worrying about Peyton Manning outbidding
him on Peyton Manning cards because Peyton Manning is buying
his best cards apparently, and he's and he wants like
his son collects, so they want to get his best cards.
I mean, think about that. You're you're going against the
guy you're trying to get a card of in an auction.
In some of these it's kind of crazy. So I
think there's there's definitely more people in it, and the
marketing is working now.
Speaker 1: The thing that I'm protective of is I'm protective of
the new collector. The new collector who's coming in is
the one who's very idealistic and very impressionable. And when
some people are being indiscriminate with what they're pumping and
what and they don't have good intentions, how do we
protect doctor Beckett? How do we protect the people who
are new to the hobby from this new these new
platforms where it's very easy for anybody to pump something.
And what can we do to say, well, that guy, well, Greg,
he's passionate about vintage football, but this other person, uh,
he's not. He's just pumping something. How does the new
collector know that? How do we protect those people?
Speaker 4: Well, it's just like you protect your child, you know,
it's okay. Again, it's okay for a child to get burned,
not okay for the child to get killed. So you know,
in the hobby, the example is you know you're gonna
learn from your mistakes. You just don't want the mistakes
to be fatal. That I'm out of here. You know,
if you slightly overpay for something, you follow the herd,
that's not a criminal offense. That's a learning experience. And
so I just think we've got to stay the course
with honest passion of helping people understand and learn from
their mistakes. It is not a no brainer to think
that hey, everything's going up. I can buy anything at
any price because next month they'll be higher. That's you.
You're gonna get burned. I mean I get burned on everything,
but you'll have some good examples of Wow, I followed
the herd all the way off the cliff on that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe some of the education that we should
can sitter and And I mean, Mike, I don't know
if you've made videos on this, but I've.
Speaker 2: Talked about it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But if you're kind of new to the hobbing or
you're thinking about it going into an area that you
weren't before, like maybe you are a modern collector and
you're thinking about getting an Vintage or vice versa. Maybe
you don't do a swan dive into the deep end.
Maybe you just kind of wade in slowly in the
shallow end so that you can learn, so that those
burns aren't severe. You know, like doctor Beckatt just said
that if you don't want it to be, you know,
a near death experience, you want it to be minor.
And I think that that's one of the concerns with
some of the pumping that happens is it's like, this
is a sure thing, this is what you've got to do,
and if you're new, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, is that, how do we encourage people to
do that? Mike?
Speaker 1: How do we encourage people to just you know, wade
and instead of do a cannonball in the deep end?
Speaker 5: Doctor Becka, go ahead, and you had something to say, they.
Speaker 4: Want to do a cannon ball, why are you telling
them not to do that? You know you don't want
him do this belly flop smack where you got where
they have where they're they're in a coma. You know
they land flat. But if they do a cannonball and
make a big splash, it's hard to tell them to
not do what's human nature. That's that's all I'm saying.
I just but they're not going to die from a cannonball.
They're gonna think, well, I don't want to do that again,
or hey, I want to jump back up and do
it again. And if they run out of money or
they have some friends say hey, here's a way to
do a swan dive, or here's a way to do
a backflip. You know, people, they just have different personalities
and so we can't I'm the old guy here. You
can't say, hey, this is the way to collect that's
a voice of reason. No, you need a voice of
passion that's bridled with some common sense and some learning
as you go.
Speaker 1: That's a good point, But Mike, what about Dan's common
He's saying that it sends them straight to these big
channels instead of the kind of I don't know, average
thinking type guy.
Speaker 2: Is that? I mean, what's your response to that? Mind?
Speaker 5: And yet people still discover us somehow. We don't have
great production value, we don't have amazing thumbnails. The thumbnails
are really the thing that attract people to videos and
all the seo things that the bigger channels do. But
people are still finding our channels, and you know, we're
getting thousands of views per video because the YouTube algorithm
is still going to feed people who are interested in
our things, our videos, and that's important and it's helpful.
I think that the I enjoy some of Jeff's videos,
I'm sorry, I do. I do think that some of
them are very bad, but I also enjoy some of them.
And it's okay that there is a massive, massive channel
that a lot of people are getting fed too. I
think that we are kind of the next step for
a lot of people once they're ready for more education.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that, and I agree with that, and
and you know, but YouTube's algorithm isn't designed to protect
new collectors, you know, like to Mike's or to dance point.
YouTube is designed to get people to go on YouTube
and stay on YouTube. They're not designed to go, oh, well,
these people might be new, so we should send them
to this guy over here. And I'm not suggesting you're
saying that, Mike, but that's part of the conundrum that
I think we have when we're talking about something like,
you know, new people in the hobby and their influence,
and that does concern me. It absolutely concerns me. And
and you're right. The production value that I have is
I literally am the lowest production People say, how much
money did you invest?
Speaker 2: I go zero? Zero dollars?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 2: Greg? Greg?
Speaker 3: If your production value is bad, that I'm in real
trouble because your way better than mine. So I don't know.
I think you guys do a great job with that.
Speaker 1: I mean we might edit some stuff a little bit,
but I mean these guys have teams of professionals that are,
you know, professionally educated.
Speaker 2: We can't compete with that.
Speaker 4: No, no, you could if you chose to go. Jeff
Wilson is not an accidental success, but his success metric,
the numbers he looks at for what is a success
is different than what probably anybody here looks at. He
looks at it, and he's very entrepreneurial, and he's he's
invested a lot into it, and I believe he has
honest passion. But he's got so many irons in the
fire now and so many you know, they're not conflicts
of interest as much as he's moving in a lot
of directions.
Speaker 1: I completely agree, and I want to respond to this
comment right here, but I do want to acknowledge we
just crossed the one hundred people in the chat threshold,
so very very much appreciate that to everybody who came
out and joined us this morning, especially my West Coast
people like you, Joe. I, why are we throwing marshmallows.
I don't think doctor Beckett is throwing marshmallows. I think
he's being a little bit more straight. I just it's
not the way that I am is And I just
dropped the video this morning, and I basically am saying,
instead of talking about all the things that I don't
like about something, we have a lot in common. I
have a lot in common with every content creator, and
so I don't really feel the need to shoot arrows
at a guy who has a slight difference in me.
Now I realize that some content creators are have good
intentions and some don't, and to a certain amount, I
should help protect others from that. But at the same time,
that's like doctor Beckett just said, that is a small burn,
I think, and so people do have to learn. And
I'm not going to bad mouth somebody else and what
they're doing to make myself seem like I'm better than
what they're doing. I'm just going to be me, and
if people choose to be with them, that's fine. If
people don't, that's fine. But I'm just not in That's
just not me. I'm just not going to go rip
on people that I don't I don't agree with, but
I do appreciate what you're saying. I do appreciate that
I'm not attacking a specific person and that's for somebody else.
That's and there are channels that do that, and that's
their spot in the hobby. For me, I mean, Mike,
how would you how would you answer that I'm Are
we throwing marshmallows at certain people or are we just
being inclusive people.
Speaker 5: I don't think the intent was for us to come
out and say Jeff Wilson is bad for the hobby.
That's just not something that we are here to do.
I think his goal is to completely maximize revenue for
himself and his business, and our goal is to have
fun because this is a side hobby for most of
us is doing YouTube and if we can make a
little money, which I think we do at the same time,
that's great. But I'm not trying to maximize my YouTube revenue.
I'm just I don't have the time for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: My goal is not to get views, just not it's
to share my love of certain things that I love.
How about this, Now, this is one of the topics
that I had kind of put on the side, and
I do think it's on a lot of people's mind.
You know, there was this video that came out with
a former PSA employee. Now he worked in the in
the he didn't work in the grading room. The guy
worked in the information gathering, like identifying what the cards are. Yeah,
does anybody have an opinion on that video? I mean,
it's getting It's got forty four thousand views, so I
think it's worthy of at least reacting to it. Was
Professor Sports Cards is the name of the channel. The
guy's been doing lots of content, lots of lives lately,
And does.
Speaker 2: Anybody have an opinion on that? I mean, Adam, do
you did you watch that video?
Speaker 3: I did? Yeah, I watched that video. Yeah, And I
guess the one thing that I was thinking about after
that one when when the when the guy who worked
at PSA was saying that employees can employees send in
their cards? As you know, i'd use you to imagine right,
Although I don't know would it be more ethical if
a PSA employee wasn't allowed to submit to PSA, But
then I don't know what the solution would be there.
But when an employee sends in cards to PSA, they
get marked and they know they're from an employee, and
then I guess people can grab certain cards, like you
have a choice, you can just go over. I'm like
picturing a table where you get all these options and
someone can go over and say, oh, I feel like
grade in these today, you know, and you kind of choose.
So that was interesting to me. I never heard that before,
But yeah, I don't know. I'd love to hear doctor
Beckett your thoughts on conflict of interest with people that
work at PSA being able to grade with PSA. Does
that matter or what do you think on that?
Speaker 4: What we tried to establish a BGS was kind of
like a double blind system where you didn't know whose
cards you were grading. You weren't picking out the cards
they were assigned, and you didn't know whose cards they were,
and the person submitting didn't know who the grader was.
So it was double blind. And although I'm pretty sure
I know who was grading the cards that I submitted
a number of years ago, because Andy Broome was doing
most of the vintage in those days, and I think
Andy was getting my cards, but he was getting a
lot of the vintage cards. But within reason, I think
there's an attempt and most companies, and I'm certainly not
going to throw PSA under the bus. I think they're
doing a lot of things right. But you know, you
want to not just have a void conflict. You want
to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, and anything
that suggests that I can grade my buddy's cards is
not a good look. And that certainly was we I
think we really avoided that at BGS, and I would
think PSA would would avoid that as well. And even then,
you know, it's grade the card, not grade the submitter.
You know, I always had a pet peeve that if
certain bulk submitters were perceived as getting more preferred grades,
that's damaging to the brand. The card needs to be
judged on its own merits, and that's regardless of who
submitted it and who graded it. And that's why we
frequently have a second grader to come in and make
sure there was a congruence.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you a question, doctor Beckett. I've always
been curious from the grading perspective about this topic. When
new technologies are introduced to the grading process. So maybe
you know PSA is using some sort of software to
determine the exact centering standards or what the centering of
a card is, or they're using new technologies to I
saw SGC has something where they scan a card and
it kind of sees wrinkles that maybe you otherwise wouldn't
have seen when you guys were going through the process,
and you're introducing new technologies, how do you keep that
from becoming a tougher grading system. How does it stay
consistent from the beginning or is it just assumed that
over time, because of the assistive technologies, that the grading
is beg going to become a little bit more strict.
Speaker 4: Well strict, I don't know if i'd use the word
strict as much as accurate. I mean, if you have
new technology, it's going to help you find flaws. Those
flaws are already there, but if you can see them
with a certain kind of light or a certain kind
of manufacturing magnification, or certain kind of a spectral thing,
or the edges where you're looking at a side view
you know surface that you're seeing smudges or or print
dots that are you know. The problem is, and this
is the backlash with I appeal, is that if you
can only see the flaw with the newest of the
new microscopes, then is it really a flaw that's that's
gonna gonna damn it that that should downgrade the card. BGS,
in its defense, is breaking it down to the four subgrades,
and so the standard has to be the standard. You know.
The different way to figure out two more uh, dispassionately
look at the centering is also tricky because not all
cards have borders, not all cards. So just in theory,
what you're saying Greg is right is that with new
technology you can see more flaws that would drive the
grades down. But there has to be some consistency with
the fact that this is still a card that although
maybe it's not Jim Mint, maybe it's not pristine, it's
still mint. It's still mint. The problem is with PSA
that that's the huge difference between a nine and a ten,
and they are once that have tightened up, and I
don't know that it was based on it might have
been based on technology when they tightened up from their
sixty forty lenience to fifty five forty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you mentioned if that was if technology
sees things that were always there. But if the technology
is seeing what was always there and before it wasn't
seen so before it slipped through the cracks, it is
a stricter grading system, which worries me because yes, it's
catching more so, yes it's probably more accurate. But in
response to that, then that means the things that weren't
being caught before we're graded easier than the things that
are being graded now. Mike, I know that you have
probably thoughts about grading standards potentially changing and more things
being caught. Is this an issue or is this something
that I just need to let go of?
Speaker 5: Y Well, can't be both. It can be an issue,
and we can also just accept it because there's nothing
that we can do about it. Either we stop grading altogether,
especially with PSA, which I have done, or we accept
it and continue grading with PSA. We can complain about
it all day, but we're not really doing anything other
than potentially educating people but also turning people off from
watching our channels because we just keep talking about the
same things.
Speaker 4: Greg. If this was a bigger deal, Tag would be
in first place of grading because Tag has the latest
technologies machine learning as well as that. And the hobby
is not said, that's what we want. They want that
little bit of subjectivity and that little bit of interpretive
nuance that this is a mint card, and this is
a gem Mint card, and this is near mint mint,
and this is excellent and all that stuffy. The hobby
wants expert grading that has some latitude to give people
what they think is a Mint card and not what
a machine says.
Speaker 1: I get that, I do get that, But I feel like,
isn't it possible that in the automobile industry, it's possible
that Toyota might not make the best car.
Speaker 2: It might be Honda.
Speaker 1: But if somebody believes and is loyal to the Toyota brand,
they keep buying Toyotas even if Honda is better. And
I'm not saying somebody is better than PSA or not.
I think there's a certain level of consistency and brand
loyalty that in a cult sure of your collection that
people that is hard to take and I think it's
to take away and I think it's possible, at least
in my opinion, I think it's possible that the best
grader is not the most popular grader.
Speaker 4: No, guys, I mean the all p s A tens
are not equal, you know, all p s A nines,
all bgs nines. I mean even with all the same subgrade.
So this is a good development that it's that it's
defeating the notion, just like with the when the when
the PMG greens in low grades go for spectacular prices.
You know that the grade is one indicator of the
value the card, and it may not even the most
important indicator. And so I appeal and the and and
buying the card, not the grade to take the grade
is this is an eight? You should look at the
serial number. You should look at who's the grader. You
should look at what is the defect that made it
an eight? Is that something that's important to you? All
that is good news, you know, if grades are just
if it's so basic. But in eight is an eight
is an eight? And nine is a nine? Is a nine?
That's not as dynamic. That's there's not as much opportunity
for the hobby being being about passion and my PSA
ten is better than your PSA ten or my BGS
nine point five is equal or better to than your
PSA ten. This is all part of the hot stove league.
That that is the reason there's so many channels. If
it was too deterministic, that that would be boring.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love that point.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: If there were two football teams, it would be the
NFL would be boring. But we get to, you know,
kind of needle our buddies a little bit because of
their team. I mean that it creates an infinite number
of factors when looking at a card and whether it
meets your eyes. It's a really interesting point. But what
I do think that it means means is I think
that it means that the number is not as valuables
as they want to think that it is. You're right,
an eight is not an eight is not an eight,
or an eight is an eight is an eight.
Speaker 2: It's not the fact. That's not the case.
Speaker 1: There's an infinite number of factors, which means an eight
to you might be different than an eight to me.
Speaker 2: And it does make it more fun, it makes it
more interesting. Mike.
Speaker 1: You just set up in your chair, so I'm ready
I'm ready for some good stuff.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: I am very antsy all the time. I move around
a lot.
Speaker 2: That's it's it's just me.
Speaker 5: But to doctor Beckett's point, an eight that isn't centered
is not a good card. To me, I would not
buy an eight that's off center, and eights can be
fairly off center based on their guidelines, whereas I would
rather have a four that's beautifully centered than an eighth
that isn't because centering, to me, is the most important criteria.
Speaker 4: That makes you a collector, not an investor. Because investors
don't think that way. They're going to take the eight
because it's an eight, not the four that's looking.
Speaker 3: Will they ever think that way though?
Speaker 2: You think?
Speaker 3: I mean in the.
Speaker 4: Future investors if they stay investors. But I want the
investors to move into the passion side of the hobby.
That's not just about the dollar.
Speaker 2: And how do we do that?
Speaker 4: Well, not all of them. We're gonna do it. Some
of them will, some of them won't.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting point.
Speaker 1: So the people who care the most about the grade
is the investor, and the person who cares the least.
Speaker 2: About the grade is the collector.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's so true. I mean, it's so obvious,
it's so true.
Speaker 2: That I don't know. I'm at a loss. Mike helped
me out. He's right, He's right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm just laughing at some of the comments. Sorry,
I distract I'm behind comments.
Speaker 3: Actually, can I Greg? Can I ask doctor Beckett a
quick question? I love hobby history. I've been meaning to
ask you this if I ever got a chance to
talk to you again. What how did you decide this
is my copy of the first Beckett? Ever? How did
you decide what to cards to put on the cover?
Do you remember that the sixty five Clemente and the
Dale Murphy Rookie autographed Rookie It looks like too.
Speaker 4: They were sitting on my desk in those days. It's
pretty much me, myself and I and I wanted to
show an older card, a vintage card, which Clemente was
my favorite player, and so I didn't put his Rookie
because it was it was you know, it's it's horizontal
rather than vertical. And then Murphy was just homage to
the fact that that I was going to be covering
new cards, not you know, that wasn't a brand new card,
but it was a newer. You know, that was not
considered as as old, and I just wanted to show that.
So so Clemente was very sentimental Murphy. I a lot
of people like Murphy. He's not my favorite player. I
actually think he has a Hall of Fame case. But
and you know, and I collected back in the day.
This is a disclosure, you're back in the day. And
I never really priced them because there wasn't and there
was not a conflict there. But I collected Hall of
Fame or other good player autographed rookie cards and autograph cards.
I collected a lot of autograph cards, so that's my card,
and I have so many autographs. But that was they'll
keep those at the bank, so this was they were
on my desk. I took them down to the what
a graphic design place and said, make me a cover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's a fascinating story. I'm glad you
asked that.
Speaker 1: We're at fifty minutes in giving us about ten so
it prevents my ability to pivot too far off of
the topic that we're in. But let's kind of circle
back for a second to the original topic, which was
the bubble situation. You know, I think We started with
Adam and and you know, we talked to doctor Beckett
about it for a minute. As a hole is the
card market, Mike in a bubble? Or are segments of
the card market?
Speaker 5: It's segments. And I hear a lot about Pokemon. I
don't follow Pokemon, so I might be way wrong, but
I feel like Pokemon, based on what I've heard, is
fully in a bubble, whereas sports cards are segments are
in a bubble. Specific sets, specific players are blowing up
specific cards. But yeah, I don't think it's the entire
industry as a whole.
Speaker 1: Adam, do you had Originally we started with a quote
from you, and you said that you're not buying any
big cards, and I love that you kind of defined
that a big card is different for everyone. You're not
buying any big cards at least through the rest of
the year. Do you think that it's just big cards
that are worth staying away from? Do you think that
there are a variety of cards that are in a
bubble or do you think it's just the big stuff
that's got really carried away? And I mean, should what
do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, honestly, I don't know if they're carried away, they
might keep going up. I really don't know. Again, I'm
going to be I have a video going on Victor's channel,
the Rookie Card Specialist. I think next week that we
already filmed where I just finished up. I completed my
one of my lifelong quests. I guess I did it
pretty early. I got every Tom Brady based rookie card now,
so you can understand why I need a break, right,
I've been going pretty heavy with that, and I made
a big splash and said I'm just going to finish
this up. And so that's that's really where most of
the video I made came from, is that, you know
I right now, I feel content where I'm at. But hey,
if you're just coming in now, hey you got to
you probably want to buy some cards, so I get it.
But like Mike says, it's not every card. So there's
certainly ways you can find cards that haven't doubled in
price recently. And one of the great things now, for
as we were talking about earlier, someone knew coming in
like when I've been collecting cards for a while, but
in twenty twenty one, I discovered that there was this
whole world out there of social media and YouTube, and
I found doctor Beckett's podcast, which I continually listen to still.
But you know, I didn't know what price is generally
what they were supposed to be. It was twenty twenty one,
and I'm thinking, you know, is this a fair price
or where was it six months ago? And then when
you know, a couple maybe a couple months later, card
Ladder really started to turn into something different where you
could look at sales history stuff like that. So I
think people coming in now, even if they're new, there's
a tool like that where you could find out if
a card is where it's priced historically speaking. So there's
a ton of resources that even weren't available four years ago.
You know that people have now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sure doctor Beckett, it's mind blowing to
think where are we right now with being able to
have real time. I mean, there was a card that
I was tracking the other day and I was I
had had an offer on it, I had a best
offer on it, and I was sitting there waiting like going, okay,
come on, come on, And then I went to comp
it in card Ladder and the card showed up as
a comp because it's sold to somebody else and I
was like, that one just sold. I was like, that's
the one I would just was. I had a best
offer on I was waiting on. And it's such real time.
That's got to be borderline mind blowing that were at
this point where the second a card sale is executed,
it's an available comp compared to back in the day
where you had teams out all over the country talking
to dealers. And it shows that's got to be wild,
doesn't it. I mean, could you have ever imagined we'd
be at this point.
Speaker 4: It's inevitable in the sense that does anybody think Dak
Prescott was or is the best quarterback in the NBA
in the NFL And the answer is no, except maybe
he does, and Jerry maybe thought it for a little
while perhaps, But basically what happened is when his contract
came up for renewal, he had the ability to extract
whatever the highest pay of a quarterback was. He wanted that,
but the guarantees and all that stuff. Okay, so there's
the timing of it, and so then the next quarterback,
just like with card ladder, all these others going to say, Okay,
that's what Dak got. Now I want, so you want
to get in line. And so I always wanted to
buy what was not for sale. I don't want to
buy what is for sale. But strategically, the goldens of
the world, the heritages, the large auctions, have figured out
that the sequence the release of these successive new high scores.
It's the video game mentality. It just ties in with
the new high score, and so you put something out.
But what used to be is that before the last
few years here people will held on to their best stuff,
and now they're saying, Wow, I can be the new
high score. Otherwise the dual logo man would never have
never come out, But it came out at just the
right time with just the right level of promotion. And
now that's the new high score, and there'll be something
else that'll be touted by the same or different auctions.
So it's a mindset and it's infected all of our
culture of whatever the standard is, I've got to do
better than that, and I'm going to hold the line.
And they're not just say no. Doesn't work because it
only takes two people to say I really want it
and I can afford it.
Speaker 1: Last thing I'm going to ask and then I'll go
around the horn and ask anybody if they have anything
they want to shout out or anything. Doctor Beckett does
the thing, Doctor Beckett, who created the nineteen eighty six
Beckett I have sitting right here next to me. Is
are you surprised that the all time most expensive card
sale is a quote unquote modern card? When you were
in the thicket things, and I remember this one right
here next to me. By the way, the eighty four
Fleer Dwight Goodin card is very very high.
Speaker 2: So there was card.
Speaker 1: There were cards that were spiking then. But is are
you surprised? Would you have believed it thirty years ago
that the all time high card was modern?
Speaker 2: Or is that surprising?
Speaker 4: Guys? The biggest surprise is not that the highest selling
card of all time is modern thirty years ago. It's
that it was that it's basketball, that it's not baseball.
The hobby thirty years ago was so baseball centric it
would be hard to imagine that any football, basketball, or
any thing would even come close, would even come close.
So but it's a beautiful card, and like I said,
it was in the right place at the right time.
There's some perhaps evidence that there was an attempt to
make it the new high score. I mean, that's the
that's the drama of the story for for mister Wonderful
that this is this is the new high score, and
and and and we're players in this industry now.
Speaker 2: It's a really good point. It definitely was. I remember
when we.
Speaker 1: Were buying basketball cards, before the first basketball Beckett was out,
and before the first tough stuff you know, was really
circulating that had you know, okay prices and it it
is very shocking that that that's the case. That hadn't
even crossed my mind. But that's Hey, it's in a
whole new world in the card industry.
Speaker 2: All right, Mike, do you have.
Speaker 1: Anything coming up that you want to share with anybody
out there before we sign off?
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I mean, well, I guess okay,
I've got my newsletter coming back. I restarted Hobby Hotline.
I'm on a hobby hotline right now at a fine
Friday yesterday, So I'm excited about that. I just want
to shout out the commenters who are amazing here during
Hobby Hotline. They always have been. Thank you for showing
up and for commenting well there on the screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about you, Adam.
Speaker 3: I just want to say it's an honor being back
on Hobby Hotline, especially with you three. And I want
to shout out my daughter who just finished her first
week of kindergarten and we're going to get some ice
cream to sell it.
Speaker 1: Ass that's a big deal. That's actually is a really
big deal. Doctor Beckett, do you have anything coming up
with Keening or something that Those are my favorites when
you and Keating get going, those are always my favorites
for my drive to work.
Speaker 4: I got to regulate that a little bit. We had
a good flurry there, and we'll do it again, I promise,
But I just got to echo what Mike was. This
is probably the best chat group and it may be
an indication of the future here with four collectors. It's
the most impressive chat group we've had ever in the
history of hobby Hotline. And I'm only on once a month,
but this was impressive, and I hope it's always like this,
because this is a lot of fun being with you
guys and chuckling with the commenters.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I am genuinely honored to be on with the three
of you guys. I have so much respect for the
three of you. You guys all three or three of
my favorite channels, three of my favorite opinions. So I
am absolutely thrilled to be a participant in this. I'm
going to be on Sports Cards Live tonight with Jeremy Lee,
so if you're out there listening, head over tonight. I
saw Joe Perrot in the chat earlier. I appreciate four
Collectors for giving me the honor of being able to
host this. Absolutely blast. Love to hear your guys' insights
the chat. I think the highest number I saw was
about one hundred and ten, one hundred and eleven something
like that. So that is a massive, massive group for
eight am eleven am, depending on where you are somewhere
in between. So thank you to everybody who participated and
came out this morning. And remember next Saturday morning it
will be back. So hope to see everybody. Thank you
for listening to this episode of Hobby Hotline.
Speaker 3: I just want to remind everyone we are a live
show every Saturday morning, eleven am Eastern eight am.
Speaker 2: Pacific on the four Collectors channel on YouTube. That's the number.
Speaker 1: Four the word Collector's channel on YouTube.
Speaker 4: We hope to see many of you live on a
future Saturday.
Speaker 1: We have a great interactive chat room and we always
provide a link for anyone that wants to come on
the show and chop it up with us.
Speaker 2: So that's a reminder.
Speaker 3: Every Saturday eleven am Eastern eight am Pacific, only four
Collectors channel on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Hope to see you on the show.