October 4, 2025 • 45 mins
Graig and Mike talk about what cards they'd be buying if they created a sports card syndicate. Babe Ruth? Mickey Mantle? Ty Cobb? Well, they share their thoughts in this one. Mike of @junkwaxhero & Graig of @MidLifeCards have partnered with Adam of @SplendidSports to create a new podcast network called @SportsCardClubhouse . This weekly podcast will cover a wide range of topics, but will primarily revolve around the sports card industry.This podcast is also available on traditional podcast platforms.#sportscards #vintagecards #vintagesportscards
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
In our massive country, there are card collectors throughout
the land participating in the hobby.
There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero and Greg of Midlife Cards.
And while distance may separate them, here is where they come
together to talk cards. Hey, Tony, how you doing buddy?
(00:22):
Oh, don't call me Tony. Oh, Mike is back.
Tony's gone and Mike is back. Well, welcome back, Mike.
We're excited to have you, bud. Yeah, a big, big thanks to Tony
for taking over for me last week.
He did such a great. You did too, of course.
But Tony, you know, I, I listened to that on my drive
(00:42):
home from work on Monday. I think first time I've listened
to a podcast in 5 1/2 years, ever since I stopped going into
the office on a regular basis. Now I'm going into the office
more and so I'm starting to do podcasts again.
And you and Tony, I, I texted you this, I think are two people
I could listen to for hours. You both have, there's no dead
(01:05):
air, there's no filler talk. It's just consistently
interesting conversation. Well, I genuinely love Tony.
It's so weird because it was about 14 months ago that we met
for the first time and he walkedby me at the National and
recognized me and actually his his buddy, his buddy recognized
(01:30):
me and said, isn't that Greg? And and they stopped me and said
hello. And then I saw him the next day
and then I saw him again the next day and I was like, dude,
let me just get he's all here. Why don't you get my Instagram?
I'm like, how about I just give you my number?
And then fast friends ever since.
So it was, it was, you know, youweren't feeling good, but it was
(01:51):
nice to have a loaded bullpen. It was like, I'm like, hey, we
got Mariano Rivera out there, let's bring him in.
Yeah. So.
Yeah, he's great. I'm a huge Tony fan, big
believer. And when you told me you had
him, I was like, great, perfect.He's better than me.
You, Wally pipped me as you. Now, you've been teasing
(02:13):
something here for, I don't know, a week or two about an
announcement about another podcast where you're going to be
cheating on me. And I think people are anxious
to hear what this is. So do you would do you want to
share it? Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm starting a a dual like a rotating podcast series.
(02:36):
One week I'm going to be doing aseries called So You Want to Be
a dealer. And it is all about dealing.
And I'm I'm interviewing or I shouldn't say interviewing.
It's more of a conversation withvarious dealers around the
hobby. It's not all Youtubers, although
the first one is going to be Chris Sewell, collector,
(02:57):
investor dealer, in that order. And then I have some others
lined up that I'm really excitedabout.
People that I bet 90% of the YouTube audience have never
heard of. But they are big dealers out
there and like one of them is onis a popular dealer on Twitter
who has a lot of followers there.
(03:17):
And I think it'll be really interesting.
And then the other portion of this rotation is so you want to
be a content creator. So it's so you want a rotating
series, You want to be a this one is me interviewing content
creators. And again, I'm going to, I will
do some Youtubers, there's no doubt, but I'm trying to get
(03:41):
other people out there that I'venever talked to that are outside
of my normal, normal sphere and get them talking about what it's
like being a content creator. I believe my first one is Adam
Gray. I keep on and call him Adam
West, which I know is wrong, butevery time it's four letter last
name Adam, Adam Gray, who is mostly basketball cards.
(04:04):
And I'm going to have him on to talk about basketball cards,
some vintage, some modern, probably not much ultra modern
with basketball. But so, you know, just talking
about what it's like being a content creator.
And those will roll out in the next probably 2 weeks or so. 1
So you want to be a dealer 1st and then so you want to be a a
(04:27):
content creator after that? I mean that sounds fun.
I I I don't know if I fully knewabout this.
So you want to be a content creator part?
I knew about the other one, but that'll be fun.
That'll be that'll be good stuff.
Now the channel here, the oh, hold on.
(04:48):
I didn't even put our logo up. If you're watching, gosh, you
should have. You should have told me that I
was. Oh, look at that.
There it is. I should wait.
Hold on. Hold on.
Let me do you do a magic trick. Ready.
Pow did it. Love it.
So so the sports card clubhouse it it now has I post my midlife
(05:14):
Q and as on there, if you want to get them the soonest, it
would be on Wednesday on my channel.
But then on Sundays, they're going on to the podcast.
And then we've got us, which we are on the podcast on Saturdays
and then well, Tuesday, Thursdayish for on YouTube.
(05:37):
And then we have Adam and Dylan did their their duo that they do
which to turn back the clock, which I love and their first one
posted on the podcast and on theYouTube channel and that was.
Together. What's that?
They're so good together. Oh, it's.
It's as fun as any listen for meis listening to those two guys
(06:00):
because there is a Ying and a Yang.
You know, they are different, but they also they just have
this just just great chemistry. So all right, well, that's
exciting and we have more thingscoming to be added to the to the
channel as well. There's been some talk about
(06:23):
some things that have been, but,but once everything kind of
officially starts happening, we'll start continuing to share.
But I have gotten to the point where podcast listening long
form content, 30 to 60 minutes is really my jam.
I love listening during my work commute.
(06:45):
It's a 30 minute commute door todoor.
And so I, I, I really enjoy listening to stuff.
So this is, this is fun because I'm hoping that people out there
are feeling that way about this,where we could just talk about
cards, which I guess we should maybe 7 minutes in now start
talking about cards in summer. So there were a few ideas of
(07:08):
what we could talk about and, and in my last live stream, my
midlife live #9 which was about a week and a half ago now at the
end of the the stream, we asked the people in the chat, hey,
what do you guys want to talk about?
(07:30):
And there were two things that pop that really caught my eye.
One was Orlando of a collector'sdream.
One of my favorite topics, I could talk about it all day
every day is quality versus quantity.
And so I thought that would be fun to kind of pick your brain
on that because we're also always evolving.
(07:50):
One of the reasons I bring this topic up, I don't know, a couple
times a year is because for me, it's always changing.
And, and I might be one way now and I might be different here in
a few months, but all and, and because there's not a right
answer that makes it interesting.
And then our buddy Mookie Chilson, he also had a topic
(08:13):
that, you know, is interesting. It was more topical or current
eventi, which is if we started asyndicate, what would our first
big purchase be for the syndicate?
You know, taking a page out of Kevin O'leary's book.
So which of those get you the most excited to start with?
(08:36):
I'm really excited about both ofthem, but let's start with the
syndicate. And I think it'll be important
to define what we mean by a syndicate because I'm not sure
that this is a term that everybody's familiar with.
And you know, when I mentioned it on my channel, there were a
bunch of people who are asking what even is a syndicate?
So. I mean to me, I mean, are you
(08:56):
asking to me? It would be like an investment
group. It would be a group of people
who pull money together to try to make a splash at some larger
purchases that individually would be difficult to
accomplish. And I think Kevin O'leary's plan
(09:17):
long term and and that syndicate's group is to maybe
sell like fractional ownership of the portfolio, but but we'll
see. Yeah, he claims that he's
already spent. He and his syndicate, he and
Shine have already spent 20 or $21 million.
But we don't know. We only know the card that was
(09:39):
the 2007 upper deck, Jordan LeBron I think.
I thought he showed. I thought I saw some more.
There were some Kobe's, some like flawless Kobe autos in
there. Yeah, I saw something.
I saw something. But but that said, so if if the
(10:00):
two of us pooled you know both $100 bills together, but if we
had a, a deep pocketed group andwe were going to make a major
acquisition, what acquisition would you make?
I have a list. So first, first and foremost, it
is on the market right now for the first time in two years.
(10:21):
It's a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth.
It's in an SGC 3 at last sold for $7.2 million two years ago.
It's right now at $3.1 million with, I don't know, two or three
weeks remaining on it. And that's for me the the
perfect opportunity right now tostart our syndicate of wealthy
(10:44):
people like us. Yeah, I mean super wealthy.
When when? Now let me let me back up
because you caught me a little off guard.
I I thought that you might go that route, but the type of
collector I am as an individual is and we're recording this on
(11:08):
Thursday, October 2nd. I have a video that posts
Friday, October 3rd on my midlife channel and it's all
about the main reason I collect and the thing that is the most
exciting for me when I collect, which is the image itself, which
(11:30):
is the visual of the item that I'm buying and what I do.
And, and at this point it will have what I did in the video is
I share my 10 favorite looking cards, not my 10 most expensive
cards, but the 10 cards that when I see them, I just, I'm
like, oh, that's like, it's likewalking through Yosemite, you
(11:52):
know, it's like just gorgeous 19. 91 tops.
Rodger Clements. Which is actually AI have.
I have it right behind me. Now I have to grab it.
I know we're not supposed to show things.
We're not supposed to show things because this is supposed
to be a podcast, but hold on. I also have it on my wall on my
(12:12):
new shelf behind me in a one touch.
But it's one of the. Greatest cards of all time.
A Desert Shield copy. Oh, it is definitely not the
Desert Shield. Mine came up in a Mont
collection. That's a beautiful It's the most
amazing card in Red Sox history.Have you?
Seen it? Oh, it's really not.
(12:33):
It's really not the 49 Leaf, TedWilliams says.
Have you seen my picture of thatexact same spot?
Me leaning up against the the green monster picture?
Oh, I'll have to. Yeah.
Now I'm going to have to put this.
I don't want to overlay this. I will.
I will share that soon somehow. Yeah.
(12:53):
This was given to me from a viewer of the channel in A tag.
A tag. Lab.
Do you have any other tags labs?I have a couple.
I was also gifted. I, I once gifted, I was gifted a
card of I was talking about someof the most memorable looking
(13:16):
cards and unique cards. And people were talking about
the, you know, the bubble gum bakwava card and stuff.
And there's a leaf card where Pascal Perez has super Jerry
girl and somebody sent me A tag card of that card in A tag
holder. So I think I have two.
(13:37):
Yeah, I well, what year is that,Pascal Perez?
I think it's 1991. I think it's the the kind of
Gray silver bordered leaf. The second year of leaf.
Isn't that 90? One.
Yeah, leaf. That makes sense.
I didn't hear the leaf part. So I don't have a single tag
slab in my collection. I have two Beckett slabs.
(13:58):
We're getting way off track here, but that's OK.
I have two Beckett slabs out of I don't know how many slabs.
I have 250, maybe 300. So, so back to where I was going
after you picked the Babe Ruth Baltimore news card is I don't
know, for me, that's an important card.
(14:19):
Obviously once you've seen that card, it's kind of becomes
memorable. But I don't know if that card
would check enough of the beautybox for me to want to spend that
kind of money on it. But is the syndicate just an
(14:41):
investment group or is the syndicate also a collector
investment group? That kind of changes how I might
go with it because as an investor, I could see how that
would be a really good buy. It's it's a highly graded Babe
Ruth, super rare early card like, but there are a lot of
(15:06):
cards that I find to be more beautiful.
So for instance, if if we wantedto pick one card per GOAT
athlete, right, you would probably choose the 1933 Gowdy
Ruth yellow background, would you go with full body?
We're talking most beautiful. Yeah, well, I I love the M1 O1
(15:29):
cards and. And so that thin Babe Ruth
throwing on the M1 O1 Ruth I'm abig fan of.
And I don't mind black and white.
Actually I love black and white.I would probably go the full
body of the Gaudis but I like the M1 O ones.
(15:49):
But we'd have to get a high grade if.
'Cause we're wealth, of course. Outrageously wealthy in the
stream. Correct, Correct.
So yeah, Baber Ruth would definitely be in the
conversation on what to buy. There are some Gaudi roots that
are signed. There are Jackie Robinson Leafs
(16:10):
that are signed to something like that.
Excite. You yes, this is that was were
on my list the 49 leaf Jackie high grade signed yeah, and you
know as high as we could get signed, which I know there are
very few that are actually autographed and then, you know,
I start thinking about Mantle. I'd want to high grade 52
(16:33):
signed. I obviously I'd want to find a
grade 51 as well signed, but I would I would try to diversify.
If you're going to spend this kind of money, we want it to be
a extremely rare card because when you have an extremely rare
(16:53):
card, then it potentially creates a bidding war if and
when the syndicate we're going to liquidate.
So again, I don't usually look through things through these
eyes. I look through them of the what
does my what is my eye attractedto?
I don't look at it of what is the, the card that has the most
(17:16):
upside. I actually think that and, and I
don't remember who I was listening to.
I was, oh, I was listening to Dustin Sports car Dad and John
Mangini and, and Dustin was talking about buying lots of the
(17:37):
high grade of a specific card soyou could almost control the
market. And he used the Jim Brown.
He was like, say there are, you know, 100 Jim Brown rookies in
an 8. That card's hard to get an high
grade. What if you bought like 60 of
them and you kind of controlled the market?
And so that's an angle we could take too, is try to buy up
(18:02):
something. And the card that I think might
be the most ups and Tony and I have talked about this Southern
collector 14 is the bond bred Jackie Robinson with the Michael
Jordan star being now kind of itseems like the preferred card
(18:24):
over the 86 flare if people are really going with that as the
true rookie. The true rookie of the Jackie
Robinson is the 47 bond bread, which is also a very cool image
of him. And and you can buy them for
about $3000 in low grade and like a one.
(18:45):
And if every time one of those popped up, we bought them and we
just like kept all other collectors from being able to
enjoy this awesome card for our syndicate, for our evil empire
syndicate, that would have some upside potential, I think.
What if Jackie Robinson tears his ACL though?
Did you think about that? That is true.
(19:06):
That is true and there are a lotof injuries going on in sports
right now. That's possible.
I don't even think he can get through 5 innings on the mound
these days. Not with these, not with the way
the players are nowadays, you know?
So you mentioned the Michael Jordan rookie cards and
obviously my preference is the 86 player.
(19:28):
I would love to have an 86 player Jordan, But in this crazy
syndicate dream that we're having here, and I am filthy
rich and you are filthy rich, I wouldn't.
Of course I'd want both of those, but if I'm only choosing
1 Jordan, I'm picking the 97 PMGPrecious Metal Gems red.
There are only 90 of them that were created, 110 of Mcgrane.
(19:53):
The red is beautiful with the Bulls jersey I want.
I want that and the last one here.
I've got some notes here. The last one that I could find
that sold was in January PSA 5 for $378,000.
That card right now, the same exact card is now on eBay for
(20:13):
$1,000,000. Another one sold BGS 7 in 2022
for $450,000. I mean, do you think that that
is long term sustainable or do you think there's a correction
on that card? Because as our evil empire
(20:33):
syndicate has to consider if we're going to take over the
sports card hobby, don't we needto make sure that we have cards
that are are correction proof or, or is that card correction?
Proof. I think that card is not only
correction proof, I think it maybe undervalued.
(20:59):
I I don't know enough about it. I know that Nat Turner bought a
green that was authentic not allthat long ago.
That kind of came out of the woodwork.
The other thing about a lot of those inserts is like, OK, maybe
there were 99 that were made, but surely some of those are
gone forever. So it's not nearly 99 because
(21:21):
nobody knew what that was when it came out of a pack.
Right. I like the Jordan rookie, but I
agree that the Jordan rookie is probably not something that our
our syndicate, you know, our ouris it is it Mr. Burn, Mr. Burns
(21:41):
syndicate should be investing inbecause there's just so many.
I really think, yeah, the 86 flare.
I don't think that that's it. Now my a buddy of mine, a dealer
friend, a local dealer friend and I showed his table in my
last card show video at that card show about 2 1/2 three
(22:04):
weeks ago he had a Bulls star baggie unopened and he sold it.
That even though you can get an idea on the condition, even
being in the baggie because the Jordan is the top card I believe
(22:25):
in the baggie is insane. Like that's insane.
Yeah. And I just saw one that sold
recently, I think it was for $30,000.
And I, I, I don't know if it's smarter to leave it in the
baggy, the team bag because it'smore rare in those or if it's
smarter to grade it. I guess it would depend on the
(22:47):
appearance of potential grade the, the, the I appeal of the
card in the bag. Does it have the potential to
get a nine or even A10, which I know is highly, highly unlikely,
but it's a it's an intriguing thing to think about.
Well, he was, he was kind of piling them up and, and for the
(23:08):
last couple of years he's been buying them up the Jordan star
one O 1 and that that that show he sold the baggy 1 and he also
sold one in a, a Beckett 8 And Ithink the baggy 1.
I think I, I, I should have, I should text him and ask him, but
I'm pretty sure the baggy 1 he sold for more, which is
(23:30):
interesting. So the syndicate now.
OK, so, so we're talking about the PMG Jordan, you've got the
Baltimore news. Babe Ruth assigned Jackie 49
Leaf signed Ruth Gowdy M1 O1 Ruth signed Mantle tops 52 tops.
(23:56):
What other is on the list for you I mean?
Ty Cobb back T20 6TY Cobb. So for anybody not familiar it's
the Ty Cobb T2O6 and he had his own tobacco and it had the Ty
Cobb card. So it's the red portrait and on
(24:16):
the back it says Ty Cobb. What does it say?
Ty Cobb? Yeah.
I I mean and it has a glossier. Jamie yes, I've I've been
talking to Jamie and have something coming out soon from
Jamie with an update. He now has one of them, but the
tie cop back, The tie cop back card, the front of it has a
(24:37):
glossier finish than the normal red portraits and those are
extremely rare. There are dozens of them in
existence. I don't remember the number in
the global population, but it's very, very low.
And that I would want the highest one graded.
Now, of course, if we're a syndicate and we're investing,
(24:58):
we want high grade, but also we want high, high appeal too.
Yeah. And for me, I think the
Syndicate, the rare is really important.
And for that reason, the Ty Cobbback of the Ty Cobb is, is
checking lots of boxes for me. I think that's a really good
choice. I think that's a really good
(25:20):
choice. I mean, it's Ty Cobb.
I I, I always say though, that the, the player, the, the
people, the humans who were players as well are who is part
of the social fabric and who is part of in the history books,
(25:40):
not sports history, but Americanhistory books, who are the names
that you see and the Babe Ruth'sand the Jackie Robinsons you
tend to see more than some, but Ty Cobb's name is Ty Cobb and
and Mickey Mantle's name is Mickey Mantle.
Like there's something Cy Young.Like how many people do you know
(26:03):
named Cy there? There's something about some of
these names, like, I mean WalterJohnson, that's not as like
exclusive of an it's not, it's not dated, it's not catchy.
But Babe Ruth, I mean, there's something about that that I
(26:24):
think is is more memorable, thatthere's something to that.
Yeah, absolutely. There's the nicknames in the
early 20th century were amazing and and they they would show up
on cards and in more modern cards.
The like tops didn't put a nickname on a tops card until
(26:44):
like 1989 with Rock Reigns, if Iremember correctly.
I, I might be mistaken, SomebodyI'm sure will correct me in
comments. But there back in the day in the
early 20th century, their nicknames went on cards and so
you got to know them as well. I was going to say Stuffy
McGuinness, but the card that Jacob Wax back Wisdom show
didn't have his first name or his nickname on it just says
(27:07):
McGuinness. So yeah, those those nicknames
stuck with these guys. Well, and a lot of those
nicknames were like, so unpolitically uncorrect,
incorrect. It's like dummy tailors like
like, I mean. I call my cats dummy, little
dummy and big dummy. But for different reasons that
(27:28):
they called this guy dummy. JJ Clark is a guy in the T2O6
set whose nickname is beyond outof bounds.
And and yeah, but but the nickname thing is something, the
memorable names are something. And I'm curious about in 50
years, in 100 years, Ty Cobb being as recognizable of a name.
(27:54):
The fact that it's Ty Cobb certainly helps, But it's it's I
think that they'll all know Jackie Robinson.
Like, and I asked my kids this, you know, I'll say, hey, Molly,
you know who do you do you know who Jackie Robinson is?
Well, yeah. And she'll tell me.
Do you know who Babe Ruth is? Yeah, she'll tell me.
Do you know who Ty Cobb is? No.
(28:16):
And I was like, OK, So there is sort of a line in the sand for
pop culture and, you know, the social fabric of the country,
which is is something that I think the syndicate has to keep
in mind, you know, for the long term upside of the investments
that we're making. Yeah, absolutely.
(28:37):
All right. Do you have anything else that
you want to add? I mean, I again, there's a lot
of cards that I think are super important.
But Clemente, rookie high grade.Really high grade.
Very high grade like the 9 sold for $1.1 million.
Hard to find that card centered,so a perfectly centered 9 that
(29:00):
would work. I don't know if there are any
autographed, but that would obviously be a a good choice.
But like there's a ton of the Hank Aaron's autographed
rookies, 54 tops, you know, so like you can't.
That card is not going to go to the moon.
Yeah, he lived forever. He.
Lived and I think there were two10's and one of them Nat Turner
has so we know that he won't allow any more to be.
(29:25):
We're getting into conspiracy theories now so I also.
I also want AT2O6. Wagner got 1/2.
One. Yeah, have to.
Now can it have a major paper loss on the back and 20 creases
in it like the one that was in APSA 2 holder at memory lane at
the National or? Or APSA restored no the.
(29:50):
Restored one that I saw at Strongsville.
It was, it looked like somethingout of the, you know, cartoon
section on the, the in the weekend newspaper.
It was, it did not look even close to like a real Cardinal.
(30:11):
I held it. I picked it up.
It was still partially a Wagner and partially something else.
It looks like if you ask ChatGPTto create an image of the T2O6
Honest Wagner. That's that's about right, yeah,
yeah. No.
And, and so then you have to ask, would you want your
(30:32):
syndicate to own the Greski Mcnall, Mcnall.
Wagner I would, because. This Mcnall.
M. CNALLI would because it's the
first car graded by PSA. It's part of a massive federal
investigation. We know it was trimmed and PSA
let it through. The story behind it, it's all
(30:54):
it's owned by Ken Kendrick. Probably worth $50 million or
something crazy. Yeah, I mean, our our buddy Jeff
went and and interviewed him andwent through, went through and
and and he shared the story about how PSA called him up and
(31:15):
said, hey, you know, because because it's now proven to be
trimmed, you know, our buyback guarantee we will pay you what
you paid for it. Even though I thought there was
like a lifetime Max on that, butI guess they were going to go
past that. And and he's like, no, no, I I
would not sell it for that because it's worth way more than
(31:37):
that. That is, I mean, that has to be
the single individual, most famous and I would think
expensive card ever, right? Yep, when I was a kid in the
80s, early 90s, it was always the Wagner and the 52 Tops
mantle. Yeah, those are the the two
cards plus the 86. Donruss can't say Co.
(32:01):
I, I believe I saw that card, believe it or not, but my memory
might be I, I definitely have seen multiple Wagners, but as a
kid could have sworn I saw that exact one, but don't.
Well, I guess quote me on it. But but that was like, you know,
(32:23):
when hockey was moving into the warmer areas and LA Kings and
Gretzky goes down to LA and is expanding hockey and that's when
he bought it. And there was like so much like
excitement around that and it was so newsworthy.
And then the, the legend just was getting started at that
point. All right, well, now let me just
(32:48):
kind of pivot a little bit. When we talk about doing a
syndicate, which we're obviouslynot going to do, this is just
like a, you know, a mental exercise.
It feels like we're cheating on the hobby to me.
Like I kind of feel like I need to take a shower after this
(33:09):
because we're talking about cards that we think have upside
and that we would invest in. And, and there's so much talk
about how, you know, that's not what the hobby's about.
And for some people it's part ofit and for some people it's all
of it. And for some people it's none of
it. I mean, the thought of a channel
being called Sports Card investor is just so different
(33:33):
than how a lot of us grew up thinking about the hobby and,
and participate in it even now. But there is that element.
So when you talk about these syndicates, when you talk about
these investors coming in, does it kind of taint the hobby at
all or, or is it a good thing for the hobby or is it a bad
(33:53):
thing or it feels like the stockchart type thing.
Now with the hobby it it's it's almost like a what's that?
What's that movie where everyone's in black and white
and then as soon as you like hook up, you turn to color or
whatever. What was that that movie called?
(34:14):
No. Oh.
You know what I'm talking about.The Wizard of Oz.
Where it goes from black and white to color the.
Wizard of Oz. No, I know that one when they
opened it up Pleasantville, did you ever see Pleasantville?
(34:36):
No, came out in the late 90s andit was these two, like it was
like they were growing up in like the 50s during like Leave
it to Beaver type era. And then as soon as they like
grew up to the age where they then were having like encounters
and stuff, like they changed color.
It's like in The Polar Express when you can no longer hear the
(34:59):
bell ring kind of thing. It's like you've changed anyway.
I don't even know what we're talking about.
What were we talking about? We're talking about does the
syndicate ruin the hobby? Yeah, is, is this is, is even
looking at the hobby through this lens, is it tainting the
(35:22):
whole point of it or is it just where we are?
It's just a thought experiment for you and me having Kevin
O'Leary and I did a video on this the day after the day we
found out he had bought that $12.9 million car.
And I said this is going to cause iconic cards to go up, to
(35:47):
go up in value and to wait to price us out, the low value
collectors like us out of those iconic cards.
And I, I got, I'm not going to say I got torn apart in the
comments, but a lot of people disagree with, which is great.
And then a lot of people, a lot of other Youtubers did videos
and talked about it and said, this impacts me in no way
(36:09):
whatsoever. And I disagree with them because
I think that when you have somebody like Kevin O'Leary
going on CNBC frequently, we've seen him on several times since
then. And I don't know what other
channels he's on and talking about the hobby.
And it's all about money and it's all about the value of
cards and, and that encourages other people to invest in what
(36:32):
we do. And I'm throwing up quote air
quotes for anybody who's not watching.
And to me, that is going to impact us, even though we are
much smaller dollar collectors, it's going to drag up the prices
of cards like the mega cracks. Messy, right?
(36:58):
It's at the 2004. Yeah, it's going to bring up the
values of the 49 leaf Jackie Robinson, which when I started
my ACE 100 list two years ago, I've still got to finish it.
I could, you could fairly easilyobtain a very low grade 49 leaf
Jackie for under $5000, which isthe cut off of my list.
(37:19):
And now those I believe have gone over $5000 for the minimum
along with several of of these other iconic cards that are on
my list. So I think that when you get
more high dollar people influencers in it then brings up
all these, even the PSA ones or PSA authentics.
(37:42):
Now the next pivot I'm going to take with us, I think could
could potentially extend this another hour, which we won't do.
We'll go another 5 to 7 minutes or so trying to keep this under
45 minutes. But now that you're back on the
train of the podcasting and listening to podcasting, a great
(38:06):
podcast is The Shallow End with Iowa Dave.
And he did a great video the other day and he was talking or
a podcast the other day and he said, why are we the only hobby
that talks about values? He's like people who collect
spoons don't don't go, oh, what's that spoon worth?
Like how much did that go for Fine China or you know all, you
(38:31):
know, original lithographs And and we're so you do disagree.
I do disagree. I think are.
You curious on spoon values. No, I'm not, but I think the
people who are collecting spoonsare talking about the values of
them, and I just think that the values are lower because there
aren't that many collectors. With baseball cards, the values
(38:52):
can be significant because there's millions of collectors
of baseball cards, whereas theremay be dozens of spoon
collectors. My mom when I was a kid
collected Hummels because of thevalue, what she believed to be
future value of them and that people collected Beanie Babies
and a lot of people thought theywere going to be massively
(39:13):
valuable later on in life. So one of his things that he
cited was he listens to a lot ofpodcasts and a lot of collector
podcasts. And he said that he listened to
a podcast about a watch collector and that they never
mentioned value. And then he was listening to
(39:36):
other podcasts and they never mentioned value.
But if you listen to a sports card podcast, you hear value a
lot. That was sort of his lead in of
of the whole thought. Yeah, I don't know any spoon
collectors. I don't.
(39:56):
Know my grandmother did. Yeah, I don't know Hummel
Collectors, although when I go to estate sales, I, I do see
quite a few of those and they'restill there late in the day.
So I don't really know, but I, Ithought it was an interesting
question as to why. And so I don't know, like, I
(40:19):
guess you don't think that that's the case, but I, I, I
hear what you're saying too. I mean, I don't have any
evidence to cite either way. So I don't know if that's what
other collectors do because I don't associate with people who
collect spoons, you know? So let's let's look at a a
cousin collecting world, which would be comic books.
(40:42):
They definitely talk about value.
I watch, I don't watch comic book collection videos, but I
watch a lot of video game collection videos on YouTube and
they talk about value. They talk about value.
Probably not as much as we do, because I don't think the values
are nearly as high as baseball cards can be, but it is
definitely more ingrained in thebaseball card world than it is
(41:04):
in other collecting worlds. But it is.
It is still a part of those other worlds.
Why do you think it's more ingrained?
What's your thought as? What's your hypothesis as to
why? Probably because it varies so
much in the in the sports card world, we're seeing a lot of ups
and downs. We're seeing a lot of people.
There's a lot of movement of baseball cards.
(41:26):
There's far more sellers and people are buying and selling
cards at a much higher rate thanthey are of other collectibles.
Just my guess of why that is. You're constantly hearing
reading articles, hearing peopletalk about it, and that kind of
snowballs. As more and more influencers
talk about it, then more viewersare going to talk about it too.
(41:51):
OK, you just you. Here's a left field question
that that you just spurred in myfeeble brain as the mouse was
running along the wheel. The more that influencers talk
about it, what percentage of card collectors do you think are
(42:15):
are consuming influencer card content?
10 to 20%. OK, SO8980 to 90% aren't hearing
what others are saying, they're just doing their thing.
Right. And I think those 8090% don't
think about value that much. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're
(42:38):
probably right. I thought about value a little
bit as a kid. Oh, I thought about it a lot.
Which is interesting that as kids opening packs of wax we
were thinking about values, but that's a whole different
conversation, so. Yeah, well, I was thinking about
it because I was reading BeckettBaseball Card monthly.
(42:59):
I read it several times every month and it was all about
values. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. So maybe it's Doctor Beckett's
fault. A. 100%.
All right, buddy, it's been 43 minutes.
The Syndicate. Anything you want to wrap a bow
(43:20):
around before we shut it down for Episode 4?
I don't think so, but I do want to recommend people go out and
buy the Reese's Peanut Buttercup, Oreo or Oreo Reese's
peanut butter cups. Oh man, they are so good.
Really not sponsored by peanut butter Cups or Oreos?
But yeah, you accept the sponsorship from them.
(43:44):
Absolutely. All right, so to our friends
over at whoever owns them. The Mars.
Mars or Hershey or something? Hershey.
Yeah, yeah, something like that.I would, I'd yes, come offer us
free candy, OK? Yeah, I'm like Framer Kramer in
(44:05):
Seinfeld when they were going tooffer him like 1/4 of
$1,000,000. We're gonna offer him free
coffee for life and a quarter of$1,000,000 and they get to him
and they say we'd like to offer you 1/4 of $1,000,000 or no,
we'd like to offer you free coffee for life and and then he
just shakes their hand and takesup the free coffee for life.
Doesn't need the money. I will take free peanut butter
(44:25):
cups for life. OK, I mean, can't argue with
you. I love chocolate, and peanut
butter is the best combo above peanut butter and Jelly.
It's peanut butter and chocolate.
So. Yeah.
All right. Well, thank you, my friend, for
finding time in your week to go through this exercise together.
(44:48):
To everybody out there who hatescard value talk, you're welcome,
even though you're still not listening.
But that's OK because we'll be back next week with something
else. Maybe we'll.
We'll see. Maybe.
All right. Thanks everybody.
In our massive country, there are card collectors throughout
the land participating in the hobby.
There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero and Greg of Midlife Cards.
And while distance may separate them, here is where they come
together to talk cards. Hey, Tony, how you doing buddy?
(00:22):
Oh, don't call me Tony. Oh, Mike is back.
Tony's gone and Mike is back. Well, welcome back, Mike.
We're excited to have you, bud. Yeah, a big, big thanks to Tony
for taking over for me last week.
He did such a great. You did too, of course.
But Tony, you know, I, I listened to that on my drive
(00:42):
home from work on Monday. I think first time I've listened
to a podcast in 5 1/2 years, ever since I stopped going into
the office on a regular basis. Now I'm going into the office
more and so I'm starting to do podcasts again.
And you and Tony, I, I texted you this, I think are two people
I could listen to for hours. You both have, there's no dead
(01:05):
air, there's no filler talk. It's just consistently
interesting conversation. Well, I genuinely love Tony.
It's so weird because it was about 14 months ago that we met
for the first time and he walkedby me at the National and
recognized me and actually his his buddy, his buddy recognized
(01:30):
me and said, isn't that Greg? And and they stopped me and said
hello. And then I saw him the next day
and then I saw him again the next day and I was like, dude,
let me just get he's all here. Why don't you get my Instagram?
I'm like, how about I just give you my number?
And then fast friends ever since.
So it was, it was, you know, youweren't feeling good, but it was
(01:51):
nice to have a loaded bullpen. It was like, I'm like, hey, we
got Mariano Rivera out there, let's bring him in.
Yeah. So.
Yeah, he's great. I'm a huge Tony fan, big
believer. And when you told me you had
him, I was like, great, perfect.He's better than me.
You, Wally pipped me as you. Now, you've been teasing
(02:13):
something here for, I don't know, a week or two about an
announcement about another podcast where you're going to be
cheating on me. And I think people are anxious
to hear what this is. So do you would do you want to
share it? Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm starting a a dual like a rotating podcast series.
(02:36):
One week I'm going to be doing aseries called So You Want to Be
a dealer. And it is all about dealing.
And I'm I'm interviewing or I shouldn't say interviewing.
It's more of a conversation withvarious dealers around the
hobby. It's not all Youtubers, although
the first one is going to be Chris Sewell, collector,
(02:57):
investor dealer, in that order. And then I have some others
lined up that I'm really excitedabout.
People that I bet 90% of the YouTube audience have never
heard of. But they are big dealers out
there and like one of them is onis a popular dealer on Twitter
who has a lot of followers there.
(03:17):
And I think it'll be really interesting.
And then the other portion of this rotation is so you want to
be a content creator. So it's so you want a rotating
series, You want to be a this one is me interviewing content
creators. And again, I'm going to, I will
do some Youtubers, there's no doubt, but I'm trying to get
(03:41):
other people out there that I'venever talked to that are outside
of my normal, normal sphere and get them talking about what it's
like being a content creator. I believe my first one is Adam
Gray. I keep on and call him Adam
West, which I know is wrong, butevery time it's four letter last
name Adam, Adam Gray, who is mostly basketball cards.
(04:04):
And I'm going to have him on to talk about basketball cards,
some vintage, some modern, probably not much ultra modern
with basketball. But so, you know, just talking
about what it's like being a content creator.
And those will roll out in the next probably 2 weeks or so. 1
So you want to be a dealer 1st and then so you want to be a a
(04:27):
content creator after that? I mean that sounds fun.
I I I don't know if I fully knewabout this.
So you want to be a content creator part?
I knew about the other one, but that'll be fun.
That'll be that'll be good stuff.
Now the channel here, the oh, hold on.
(04:48):
I didn't even put our logo up. If you're watching, gosh, you
should have. You should have told me that I
was. Oh, look at that.
There it is. I should wait.
Hold on. Hold on.
Let me do you do a magic trick. Ready.
Pow did it. Love it.
So so the sports card clubhouse it it now has I post my midlife
(05:14):
Q and as on there, if you want to get them the soonest, it
would be on Wednesday on my channel.
But then on Sundays, they're going on to the podcast.
And then we've got us, which we are on the podcast on Saturdays
and then well, Tuesday, Thursdayish for on YouTube.
(05:37):
And then we have Adam and Dylan did their their duo that they do
which to turn back the clock, which I love and their first one
posted on the podcast and on theYouTube channel and that was.
Together. What's that?
They're so good together. Oh, it's.
It's as fun as any listen for meis listening to those two guys
(06:00):
because there is a Ying and a Yang.
You know, they are different, but they also they just have
this just just great chemistry. So all right, well, that's
exciting and we have more thingscoming to be added to the to the
channel as well. There's been some talk about
(06:23):
some things that have been, but,but once everything kind of
officially starts happening, we'll start continuing to share.
But I have gotten to the point where podcast listening long
form content, 30 to 60 minutes is really my jam.
I love listening during my work commute.
(06:45):
It's a 30 minute commute door todoor.
And so I, I, I really enjoy listening to stuff.
So this is, this is fun because I'm hoping that people out there
are feeling that way about this,where we could just talk about
cards, which I guess we should maybe 7 minutes in now start
talking about cards in summer. So there were a few ideas of
(07:08):
what we could talk about and, and in my last live stream, my
midlife live #9 which was about a week and a half ago now at the
end of the the stream, we asked the people in the chat, hey,
what do you guys want to talk about?
(07:30):
And there were two things that pop that really caught my eye.
One was Orlando of a collector'sdream.
One of my favorite topics, I could talk about it all day
every day is quality versus quantity.
And so I thought that would be fun to kind of pick your brain
on that because we're also always evolving.
(07:50):
One of the reasons I bring this topic up, I don't know, a couple
times a year is because for me, it's always changing.
And, and I might be one way now and I might be different here in
a few months, but all and, and because there's not a right
answer that makes it interesting.
And then our buddy Mookie Chilson, he also had a topic
(08:13):
that, you know, is interesting. It was more topical or current
eventi, which is if we started asyndicate, what would our first
big purchase be for the syndicate?
You know, taking a page out of Kevin O'leary's book.
So which of those get you the most excited to start with?
(08:36):
I'm really excited about both ofthem, but let's start with the
syndicate. And I think it'll be important
to define what we mean by a syndicate because I'm not sure
that this is a term that everybody's familiar with.
And you know, when I mentioned it on my channel, there were a
bunch of people who are asking what even is a syndicate?
So. I mean to me, I mean, are you
(08:56):
asking to me? It would be like an investment
group. It would be a group of people
who pull money together to try to make a splash at some larger
purchases that individually would be difficult to
accomplish. And I think Kevin O'leary's plan
(09:17):
long term and and that syndicate's group is to maybe
sell like fractional ownership of the portfolio, but but we'll
see. Yeah, he claims that he's
already spent. He and his syndicate, he and
Shine have already spent 20 or $21 million.
But we don't know. We only know the card that was
(09:39):
the 2007 upper deck, Jordan LeBron I think.
I thought he showed. I thought I saw some more.
There were some Kobe's, some like flawless Kobe autos in
there. Yeah, I saw something.
I saw something. But but that said, so if if the
(10:00):
two of us pooled you know both $100 bills together, but if we
had a, a deep pocketed group andwe were going to make a major
acquisition, what acquisition would you make?
I have a list. So first, first and foremost, it
is on the market right now for the first time in two years.
(10:21):
It's a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth.
It's in an SGC 3 at last sold for $7.2 million two years ago.
It's right now at $3.1 million with, I don't know, two or three
weeks remaining on it. And that's for me the the
perfect opportunity right now tostart our syndicate of wealthy
(10:44):
people like us. Yeah, I mean super wealthy.
When when? Now let me let me back up
because you caught me a little off guard.
I I thought that you might go that route, but the type of
collector I am as an individual is and we're recording this on
(11:08):
Thursday, October 2nd. I have a video that posts
Friday, October 3rd on my midlife channel and it's all
about the main reason I collect and the thing that is the most
exciting for me when I collect, which is the image itself, which
(11:30):
is the visual of the item that I'm buying and what I do.
And, and at this point it will have what I did in the video is
I share my 10 favorite looking cards, not my 10 most expensive
cards, but the 10 cards that when I see them, I just, I'm
like, oh, that's like, it's likewalking through Yosemite, you
(11:52):
know, it's like just gorgeous 19. 91 tops.
Rodger Clements. Which is actually AI have.
I have it right behind me. Now I have to grab it.
I know we're not supposed to show things.
We're not supposed to show things because this is supposed
to be a podcast, but hold on. I also have it on my wall on my
(12:12):
new shelf behind me in a one touch.
But it's one of the. Greatest cards of all time.
A Desert Shield copy. Oh, it is definitely not the
Desert Shield. Mine came up in a Mont
collection. That's a beautiful It's the most
amazing card in Red Sox history.Have you?
Seen it? Oh, it's really not.
(12:33):
It's really not the 49 Leaf, TedWilliams says.
Have you seen my picture of thatexact same spot?
Me leaning up against the the green monster picture?
Oh, I'll have to. Yeah.
Now I'm going to have to put this.
I don't want to overlay this. I will.
I will share that soon somehow. Yeah.
(12:53):
This was given to me from a viewer of the channel in A tag.
A tag. Lab.
Do you have any other tags labs?I have a couple.
I was also gifted. I, I once gifted, I was gifted a
card of I was talking about someof the most memorable looking
(13:16):
cards and unique cards. And people were talking about
the, you know, the bubble gum bakwava card and stuff.
And there's a leaf card where Pascal Perez has super Jerry
girl and somebody sent me A tag card of that card in A tag
holder. So I think I have two.
(13:37):
Yeah, I well, what year is that,Pascal Perez?
I think it's 1991. I think it's the the kind of
Gray silver bordered leaf. The second year of leaf.
Isn't that 90? One.
Yeah, leaf. That makes sense.
I didn't hear the leaf part. So I don't have a single tag
slab in my collection. I have two Beckett slabs.
(13:58):
We're getting way off track here, but that's OK.
I have two Beckett slabs out of I don't know how many slabs.
I have 250, maybe 300. So, so back to where I was going
after you picked the Babe Ruth Baltimore news card is I don't
know, for me, that's an important card.
(14:19):
Obviously once you've seen that card, it's kind of becomes
memorable. But I don't know if that card
would check enough of the beautybox for me to want to spend that
kind of money on it. But is the syndicate just an
(14:41):
investment group or is the syndicate also a collector
investment group? That kind of changes how I might
go with it because as an investor, I could see how that
would be a really good buy. It's it's a highly graded Babe
Ruth, super rare early card like, but there are a lot of
(15:06):
cards that I find to be more beautiful.
So for instance, if if we wantedto pick one card per GOAT
athlete, right, you would probably choose the 1933 Gowdy
Ruth yellow background, would you go with full body?
We're talking most beautiful. Yeah, well, I I love the M1 O1
(15:29):
cards and. And so that thin Babe Ruth
throwing on the M1 O1 Ruth I'm abig fan of.
And I don't mind black and white.
Actually I love black and white.I would probably go the full
body of the Gaudis but I like the M1 O ones.
(15:49):
But we'd have to get a high grade if.
'Cause we're wealth, of course. Outrageously wealthy in the
stream. Correct, Correct.
So yeah, Baber Ruth would definitely be in the
conversation on what to buy. There are some Gaudi roots that
are signed. There are Jackie Robinson Leafs
(16:10):
that are signed to something like that.
Excite. You yes, this is that was were
on my list the 49 leaf Jackie high grade signed yeah, and you
know as high as we could get signed, which I know there are
very few that are actually autographed and then, you know,
I start thinking about Mantle. I'd want to high grade 52
(16:33):
signed. I obviously I'd want to find a
grade 51 as well signed, but I would I would try to diversify.
If you're going to spend this kind of money, we want it to be
a extremely rare card because when you have an extremely rare
(16:53):
card, then it potentially creates a bidding war if and
when the syndicate we're going to liquidate.
So again, I don't usually look through things through these
eyes. I look through them of the what
does my what is my eye attractedto?
I don't look at it of what is the, the card that has the most
(17:16):
upside. I actually think that and, and I
don't remember who I was listening to.
I was, oh, I was listening to Dustin Sports car Dad and John
Mangini and, and Dustin was talking about buying lots of the
(17:37):
high grade of a specific card soyou could almost control the
market. And he used the Jim Brown.
He was like, say there are, you know, 100 Jim Brown rookies in
an 8. That card's hard to get an high
grade. What if you bought like 60 of
them and you kind of controlled the market?
And so that's an angle we could take too, is try to buy up
(18:02):
something. And the card that I think might
be the most ups and Tony and I have talked about this Southern
collector 14 is the bond bred Jackie Robinson with the Michael
Jordan star being now kind of itseems like the preferred card
(18:24):
over the 86 flare if people are really going with that as the
true rookie. The true rookie of the Jackie
Robinson is the 47 bond bread, which is also a very cool image
of him. And and you can buy them for
about $3000 in low grade and like a one.
(18:45):
And if every time one of those popped up, we bought them and we
just like kept all other collectors from being able to
enjoy this awesome card for our syndicate, for our evil empire
syndicate, that would have some upside potential, I think.
What if Jackie Robinson tears his ACL though?
Did you think about that? That is true.
(19:06):
That is true and there are a lotof injuries going on in sports
right now. That's possible.
I don't even think he can get through 5 innings on the mound
these days. Not with these, not with the way
the players are nowadays, you know?
So you mentioned the Michael Jordan rookie cards and
obviously my preference is the 86 player.
(19:28):
I would love to have an 86 player Jordan, But in this crazy
syndicate dream that we're having here, and I am filthy
rich and you are filthy rich, I wouldn't.
Of course I'd want both of those, but if I'm only choosing
1 Jordan, I'm picking the 97 PMGPrecious Metal Gems red.
There are only 90 of them that were created, 110 of Mcgrane.
(19:53):
The red is beautiful with the Bulls jersey I want.
I want that and the last one here.
I've got some notes here. The last one that I could find
that sold was in January PSA 5 for $378,000.
That card right now, the same exact card is now on eBay for
(20:13):
$1,000,000. Another one sold BGS 7 in 2022
for $450,000. I mean, do you think that that
is long term sustainable or do you think there's a correction
on that card? Because as our evil empire
(20:33):
syndicate has to consider if we're going to take over the
sports card hobby, don't we needto make sure that we have cards
that are are correction proof or, or is that card correction?
Proof. I think that card is not only
correction proof, I think it maybe undervalued.
(20:59):
I I don't know enough about it. I know that Nat Turner bought a
green that was authentic not allthat long ago.
That kind of came out of the woodwork.
The other thing about a lot of those inserts is like, OK, maybe
there were 99 that were made, but surely some of those are
gone forever. So it's not nearly 99 because
(21:21):
nobody knew what that was when it came out of a pack.
Right. I like the Jordan rookie, but I
agree that the Jordan rookie is probably not something that our
our syndicate, you know, our ouris it is it Mr. Burn, Mr. Burns
(21:41):
syndicate should be investing inbecause there's just so many.
I really think, yeah, the 86 flare.
I don't think that that's it. Now my a buddy of mine, a dealer
friend, a local dealer friend and I showed his table in my
last card show video at that card show about 2 1/2 three
(22:04):
weeks ago he had a Bulls star baggie unopened and he sold it.
That even though you can get an idea on the condition, even
being in the baggie because the Jordan is the top card I believe
(22:25):
in the baggie is insane. Like that's insane.
Yeah. And I just saw one that sold
recently, I think it was for $30,000.
And I, I, I don't know if it's smarter to leave it in the
baggy, the team bag because it'smore rare in those or if it's
smarter to grade it. I guess it would depend on the
(22:47):
appearance of potential grade the, the, the I appeal of the
card in the bag. Does it have the potential to
get a nine or even A10, which I know is highly, highly unlikely,
but it's a it's an intriguing thing to think about.
Well, he was, he was kind of piling them up and, and for the
(23:08):
last couple of years he's been buying them up the Jordan star
one O 1 and that that that show he sold the baggy 1 and he also
sold one in a, a Beckett 8 And Ithink the baggy 1.
I think I, I, I should have, I should text him and ask him, but
I'm pretty sure the baggy 1 he sold for more, which is
(23:30):
interesting. So the syndicate now.
OK, so, so we're talking about the PMG Jordan, you've got the
Baltimore news. Babe Ruth assigned Jackie 49
Leaf signed Ruth Gowdy M1 O1 Ruth signed Mantle tops 52 tops.
(23:56):
What other is on the list for you I mean?
Ty Cobb back T20 6TY Cobb. So for anybody not familiar it's
the Ty Cobb T2O6 and he had his own tobacco and it had the Ty
Cobb card. So it's the red portrait and on
(24:16):
the back it says Ty Cobb. What does it say?
Ty Cobb? Yeah.
I I mean and it has a glossier. Jamie yes, I've I've been
talking to Jamie and have something coming out soon from
Jamie with an update. He now has one of them, but the
tie cop back, The tie cop back card, the front of it has a
(24:37):
glossier finish than the normal red portraits and those are
extremely rare. There are dozens of them in
existence. I don't remember the number in
the global population, but it's very, very low.
And that I would want the highest one graded.
Now, of course, if we're a syndicate and we're investing,
(24:58):
we want high grade, but also we want high, high appeal too.
Yeah. And for me, I think the
Syndicate, the rare is really important.
And for that reason, the Ty Cobbback of the Ty Cobb is, is
checking lots of boxes for me. I think that's a really good
choice. I think that's a really good
(25:20):
choice. I mean, it's Ty Cobb.
I I, I always say though, that the, the player, the, the
people, the humans who were players as well are who is part
of the social fabric and who is part of in the history books,
(25:40):
not sports history, but Americanhistory books, who are the names
that you see and the Babe Ruth'sand the Jackie Robinsons you
tend to see more than some, but Ty Cobb's name is Ty Cobb and
and Mickey Mantle's name is Mickey Mantle.
Like there's something Cy Young.Like how many people do you know
(26:03):
named Cy there? There's something about some of
these names, like, I mean WalterJohnson, that's not as like
exclusive of an it's not, it's not dated, it's not catchy.
But Babe Ruth, I mean, there's something about that that I
(26:24):
think is is more memorable, thatthere's something to that.
Yeah, absolutely. There's the nicknames in the
early 20th century were amazing and and they they would show up
on cards and in more modern cards.
The like tops didn't put a nickname on a tops card until
(26:44):
like 1989 with Rock Reigns, if Iremember correctly.
I, I might be mistaken, SomebodyI'm sure will correct me in
comments. But there back in the day in the
early 20th century, their nicknames went on cards and so
you got to know them as well. I was going to say Stuffy
McGuinness, but the card that Jacob Wax back Wisdom show
didn't have his first name or his nickname on it just says
(27:07):
McGuinness. So yeah, those those nicknames
stuck with these guys. Well, and a lot of those
nicknames were like, so unpolitically uncorrect,
incorrect. It's like dummy tailors like
like, I mean. I call my cats dummy, little
dummy and big dummy. But for different reasons that
(27:28):
they called this guy dummy. JJ Clark is a guy in the T2O6
set whose nickname is beyond outof bounds.
And and yeah, but but the nickname thing is something, the
memorable names are something. And I'm curious about in 50
years, in 100 years, Ty Cobb being as recognizable of a name.
(27:54):
The fact that it's Ty Cobb certainly helps, But it's it's I
think that they'll all know Jackie Robinson.
Like, and I asked my kids this, you know, I'll say, hey, Molly,
you know who do you do you know who Jackie Robinson is?
Well, yeah. And she'll tell me.
Do you know who Babe Ruth is? Yeah, she'll tell me.
Do you know who Ty Cobb is? No.
(28:16):
And I was like, OK, So there is sort of a line in the sand for
pop culture and, you know, the social fabric of the country,
which is is something that I think the syndicate has to keep
in mind, you know, for the long term upside of the investments
that we're making. Yeah, absolutely.
(28:37):
All right. Do you have anything else that
you want to add? I mean, I again, there's a lot
of cards that I think are super important.
But Clemente, rookie high grade.Really high grade.
Very high grade like the 9 sold for $1.1 million.
Hard to find that card centered,so a perfectly centered 9 that
(29:00):
would work. I don't know if there are any
autographed, but that would obviously be a a good choice.
But like there's a ton of the Hank Aaron's autographed
rookies, 54 tops, you know, so like you can't.
That card is not going to go to the moon.
Yeah, he lived forever. He.
Lived and I think there were two10's and one of them Nat Turner
has so we know that he won't allow any more to be.
(29:25):
We're getting into conspiracy theories now so I also.
I also want AT2O6. Wagner got 1/2.
One. Yeah, have to.
Now can it have a major paper loss on the back and 20 creases
in it like the one that was in APSA 2 holder at memory lane at
the National or? Or APSA restored no the.
(29:50):
Restored one that I saw at Strongsville.
It was, it looked like somethingout of the, you know, cartoon
section on the, the in the weekend newspaper.
It was, it did not look even close to like a real Cardinal.
(30:11):
I held it. I picked it up.
It was still partially a Wagner and partially something else.
It looks like if you ask ChatGPTto create an image of the T2O6
Honest Wagner. That's that's about right, yeah,
yeah. No.
And, and so then you have to ask, would you want your
(30:32):
syndicate to own the Greski Mcnall, Mcnall.
Wagner I would, because. This Mcnall.
M. CNALLI would because it's the
first car graded by PSA. It's part of a massive federal
investigation. We know it was trimmed and PSA
let it through. The story behind it, it's all
(30:54):
it's owned by Ken Kendrick. Probably worth $50 million or
something crazy. Yeah, I mean, our our buddy Jeff
went and and interviewed him andwent through, went through and
and and he shared the story about how PSA called him up and
(31:15):
said, hey, you know, because because it's now proven to be
trimmed, you know, our buyback guarantee we will pay you what
you paid for it. Even though I thought there was
like a lifetime Max on that, butI guess they were going to go
past that. And and he's like, no, no, I I
would not sell it for that because it's worth way more than
(31:37):
that. That is, I mean, that has to be
the single individual, most famous and I would think
expensive card ever, right? Yep, when I was a kid in the
80s, early 90s, it was always the Wagner and the 52 Tops
mantle. Yeah, those are the the two
cards plus the 86. Donruss can't say Co.
(32:01):
I, I believe I saw that card, believe it or not, but my memory
might be I, I definitely have seen multiple Wagners, but as a
kid could have sworn I saw that exact one, but don't.
Well, I guess quote me on it. But but that was like, you know,
(32:23):
when hockey was moving into the warmer areas and LA Kings and
Gretzky goes down to LA and is expanding hockey and that's when
he bought it. And there was like so much like
excitement around that and it was so newsworthy.
And then the, the legend just was getting started at that
point. All right, well, now let me just
(32:48):
kind of pivot a little bit. When we talk about doing a
syndicate, which we're obviouslynot going to do, this is just
like a, you know, a mental exercise.
It feels like we're cheating on the hobby to me.
Like I kind of feel like I need to take a shower after this
(33:09):
because we're talking about cards that we think have upside
and that we would invest in. And, and there's so much talk
about how, you know, that's not what the hobby's about.
And for some people it's part ofit and for some people it's all
of it. And for some people it's none of
it. I mean, the thought of a channel
being called Sports Card investor is just so different
(33:33):
than how a lot of us grew up thinking about the hobby and,
and participate in it even now. But there is that element.
So when you talk about these syndicates, when you talk about
these investors coming in, does it kind of taint the hobby at
all or, or is it a good thing for the hobby or is it a bad
(33:53):
thing or it feels like the stockchart type thing.
Now with the hobby it it's it's almost like a what's that?
What's that movie where everyone's in black and white
and then as soon as you like hook up, you turn to color or
whatever. What was that that movie called?
(34:14):
No. Oh.
You know what I'm talking about.The Wizard of Oz.
Where it goes from black and white to color the.
Wizard of Oz. No, I know that one when they
opened it up Pleasantville, did you ever see Pleasantville?
(34:36):
No, came out in the late 90s andit was these two, like it was
like they were growing up in like the 50s during like Leave
it to Beaver type era. And then as soon as they like
grew up to the age where they then were having like encounters
and stuff, like they changed color.
It's like in The Polar Express when you can no longer hear the
(34:59):
bell ring kind of thing. It's like you've changed anyway.
I don't even know what we're talking about.
What were we talking about? We're talking about does the
syndicate ruin the hobby? Yeah, is, is this is, is even
looking at the hobby through this lens, is it tainting the
(35:22):
whole point of it or is it just where we are?
It's just a thought experiment for you and me having Kevin
O'Leary and I did a video on this the day after the day we
found out he had bought that $12.9 million car.
And I said this is going to cause iconic cards to go up, to
(35:47):
go up in value and to wait to price us out, the low value
collectors like us out of those iconic cards.
And I, I got, I'm not going to say I got torn apart in the
comments, but a lot of people disagree with, which is great.
And then a lot of people, a lot of other Youtubers did videos
and talked about it and said, this impacts me in no way
(36:09):
whatsoever. And I disagree with them because
I think that when you have somebody like Kevin O'Leary
going on CNBC frequently, we've seen him on several times since
then. And I don't know what other
channels he's on and talking about the hobby.
And it's all about money and it's all about the value of
cards and, and that encourages other people to invest in what
(36:32):
we do. And I'm throwing up quote air
quotes for anybody who's not watching.
And to me, that is going to impact us, even though we are
much smaller dollar collectors, it's going to drag up the prices
of cards like the mega cracks. Messy, right?
(36:58):
It's at the 2004. Yeah, it's going to bring up the
values of the 49 leaf Jackie Robinson, which when I started
my ACE 100 list two years ago, I've still got to finish it.
I could, you could fairly easilyobtain a very low grade 49 leaf
Jackie for under $5000, which isthe cut off of my list.
(37:19):
And now those I believe have gone over $5000 for the minimum
along with several of of these other iconic cards that are on
my list. So I think that when you get
more high dollar people influencers in it then brings up
all these, even the PSA ones or PSA authentics.
(37:42):
Now the next pivot I'm going to take with us, I think could
could potentially extend this another hour, which we won't do.
We'll go another 5 to 7 minutes or so trying to keep this under
45 minutes. But now that you're back on the
train of the podcasting and listening to podcasting, a great
(38:06):
podcast is The Shallow End with Iowa Dave.
And he did a great video the other day and he was talking or
a podcast the other day and he said, why are we the only hobby
that talks about values? He's like people who collect
spoons don't don't go, oh, what's that spoon worth?
Like how much did that go for Fine China or you know all, you
(38:31):
know, original lithographs And and we're so you do disagree.
I do disagree. I think are.
You curious on spoon values. No, I'm not, but I think the
people who are collecting spoonsare talking about the values of
them, and I just think that the values are lower because there
aren't that many collectors. With baseball cards, the values
(38:52):
can be significant because there's millions of collectors
of baseball cards, whereas theremay be dozens of spoon
collectors. My mom when I was a kid
collected Hummels because of thevalue, what she believed to be
future value of them and that people collected Beanie Babies
and a lot of people thought theywere going to be massively
(39:13):
valuable later on in life. So one of his things that he
cited was he listens to a lot ofpodcasts and a lot of collector
podcasts. And he said that he listened to
a podcast about a watch collector and that they never
mentioned value. And then he was listening to
(39:36):
other podcasts and they never mentioned value.
But if you listen to a sports card podcast, you hear value a
lot. That was sort of his lead in of
of the whole thought. Yeah, I don't know any spoon
collectors. I don't.
(39:56):
Know my grandmother did. Yeah, I don't know Hummel
Collectors, although when I go to estate sales, I, I do see
quite a few of those and they'restill there late in the day.
So I don't really know, but I, Ithought it was an interesting
question as to why. And so I don't know, like, I
(40:19):
guess you don't think that that's the case, but I, I, I
hear what you're saying too. I mean, I don't have any
evidence to cite either way. So I don't know if that's what
other collectors do because I don't associate with people who
collect spoons, you know? So let's let's look at a a
cousin collecting world, which would be comic books.
(40:42):
They definitely talk about value.
I watch, I don't watch comic book collection videos, but I
watch a lot of video game collection videos on YouTube and
they talk about value. They talk about value.
Probably not as much as we do, because I don't think the values
are nearly as high as baseball cards can be, but it is
definitely more ingrained in thebaseball card world than it is
(41:04):
in other collecting worlds. But it is.
It is still a part of those other worlds.
Why do you think it's more ingrained?
What's your thought as? What's your hypothesis as to
why? Probably because it varies so
much in the in the sports card world, we're seeing a lot of ups
and downs. We're seeing a lot of people.
There's a lot of movement of baseball cards.
(41:26):
There's far more sellers and people are buying and selling
cards at a much higher rate thanthey are of other collectibles.
Just my guess of why that is. You're constantly hearing
reading articles, hearing peopletalk about it, and that kind of
snowballs. As more and more influencers
talk about it, then more viewersare going to talk about it too.
(41:51):
OK, you just you. Here's a left field question
that that you just spurred in myfeeble brain as the mouse was
running along the wheel. The more that influencers talk
about it, what percentage of card collectors do you think are
(42:15):
are consuming influencer card content?
10 to 20%. OK, SO8980 to 90% aren't hearing
what others are saying, they're just doing their thing.
Right. And I think those 8090% don't
think about value that much. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're
(42:38):
probably right. I thought about value a little
bit as a kid. Oh, I thought about it a lot.
Which is interesting that as kids opening packs of wax we
were thinking about values, but that's a whole different
conversation, so. Yeah, well, I was thinking about
it because I was reading BeckettBaseball Card monthly.
(42:59):
I read it several times every month and it was all about
values. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. So maybe it's Doctor Beckett's
fault. A. 100%.
All right, buddy, it's been 43 minutes.
The Syndicate. Anything you want to wrap a bow
(43:20):
around before we shut it down for Episode 4?
I don't think so, but I do want to recommend people go out and
buy the Reese's Peanut Buttercup, Oreo or Oreo Reese's
peanut butter cups. Oh man, they are so good.
Really not sponsored by peanut butter Cups or Oreos?
But yeah, you accept the sponsorship from them.
(43:44):
Absolutely. All right, so to our friends
over at whoever owns them. The Mars.
Mars or Hershey or something? Hershey.
Yeah, yeah, something like that.I would, I'd yes, come offer us
free candy, OK? Yeah, I'm like Framer Kramer in
(44:05):
Seinfeld when they were going tooffer him like 1/4 of
$1,000,000. We're gonna offer him free
coffee for life and a quarter of$1,000,000 and they get to him
and they say we'd like to offer you 1/4 of $1,000,000 or no,
we'd like to offer you free coffee for life and and then he
just shakes their hand and takesup the free coffee for life.
Doesn't need the money. I will take free peanut butter
(44:25):
cups for life. OK, I mean, can't argue with
you. I love chocolate, and peanut
butter is the best combo above peanut butter and Jelly.
It's peanut butter and chocolate.
So. Yeah.
All right. Well, thank you, my friend, for
finding time in your week to go through this exercise together.
(44:48):
To everybody out there who hatescard value talk, you're welcome,
even though you're still not listening.
But that's OK because we'll be back next week with something
else. Maybe we'll.
We'll see. Maybe.
All right. Thanks everybody.
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