Talking Sports Card Scams and Fanatics Is Tone Deaf! Surface Issues - Episode 5

Graig and Mike talk about the sports card scam Mike covered on his channel, and about the new Fanatics 3 Kings program being tone deaf. 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

Episode Transcript

(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 buddy, how's it going?

(00:21):
It's such a great, great tune tokick us off.
I love it. I I'm going to say it, I think
every time for years. We're going to get so sick of me
mentioning it. Yeah, it's a it's a really good
one and it's just kind of playful and whimsical and and
fun, just like us it. Feels a little bit like the Curb
Your Enthusiasm theme. Yeah, yeah, I could see that.

(00:43):
Circusy, my family would hear, Iwould, I would.
They didn't watch Curb. And I'd be in the other room and
I'd have Curb playing and they'dhear the intro and the outro
music and they referred to it aslike the carnival circus music.
And I would be in the other roomjust laughing where they'd hear

(01:04):
me throughout the house because that nothing gets me roaring
more than Curb. Yes, All right, so.
It's been a week, so a few things have happened in the last
week. Some new videos on the sports
card clubhouse platform, whetherit be in the YouTube or the

(01:29):
podcasting arena, one of which was yours.
Tell us about that. Yeah, a new series called So You
Want to Be a Dealer, which is a rotating series with every other
week I'll have So You Want to Bea content creator and each one
I'll interview a dealer and on the other end of it, I'll
interview a content creator in this coming week.

(01:50):
I guess I'll announce it right now because by the time this
first airs on Saturday, I will have have the episode in the can
as they say it is, which I've never said before, never will
again, I promise. But this person is Adam Gray.
I always want to say Adam West, and I know it's not Adam West,
but Adam Gray, who is a mostly basketball content creator on

(02:13):
Twitter and Instagram and he also does some YouTube and he's
just really interesting and really good and surprisingly
tall. I saw him at the National.
I didn't get a chance to talk tohim cuz when I saw him he was
talking to somebody else and then he was gone.
And I was shocked to find that he might actually be taller than
me. And I'm 6 foot 2.
I would guess that he's 6/3 or 6/4.
We're going to get to the bottomof it on that video.

(02:33):
How tall is he? That's the only reason I'm
having him on. I don't like him already because
I think he's taller than me. Yeah, I mean, that's the
important thing, is to make sureabout that.
That's right. Yeah.
So I, I'll be honest, I was asked this morning by our friend
Theo, have I heard the first episode yet?
And I said no because my commuteis 25 minutes and I am on my

(02:56):
third leg of the oh man, I'm going to mess it up.
Jake wax pack wisdom and Matt from Providence, the hit list.
I was on leg three of the hit list.
And then I was and then I'm starting you and your, your
episode with Chris. And I just finished the hit

(03:16):
list. Like just finished it maybe 5
minutes ago. They're better anyway.
Priorities. I understand.
No, it's just, you know, so couple things you wanted to talk
about today. You had a video that posted
earlier in the week. Tell us about that and your
thoughts on it. Yeah, so I did a video somebody

(03:38):
posted in this Facebook sports card scammer tracker group.
I think that's roughly what it'scalled about a scam, and I had
never heard of it before. And nobody in the scammer
tracker group had heard of this before.
Even the admins seem to have heard of this scam before.
And then somebody posted about it on Twitter and it went viral

(03:59):
over there. And I did this video and as of
now on Thursday evening, it has my video has 12,000 views, which
is bonkers for a video of me. I haven't had a video get that
many views over a year. I would guess I just don't post
that kind of content that that often anymore because it's I
don't know, I just this one really grabbed my attention and

(04:20):
I said I got to do a video because this is a really
complicated scam and I think people need to be cautious of
this. And the way it worked is, and
I'll explain this very quickly, a scammer convinced one person
to sell him cards and he also convinced another person to buy
cards from him and he had one ofthem pay the other while he had

(04:41):
the other one who had been paid ship him the card.
So he got cards for free, the person he was buying them from
was paid, but the person who waspaying was out the money.
And it's terrifying how easy it was.
And there are a lot of red flags.
There are a lot of things that people need to be cautious of.
For instance, bypassing. Don't let somebody bypass the

(05:03):
PayPal or you shouldn't be bypassing the PayPal address.
If you're the seller, somebody pays you with PayPal, you have a
default PayPal address in there and you need to ship to that
address. And if somebody says no, I need
you to ship this to my business partner or something like that,
say no, I'm shipping to the address on your PayPal.
If you need to change your address, you do that before I

(05:25):
ship. You would think that that would
solve everything. You would think going through
the platform of eBay, for example, would solve everything.
And I listened to I, I listened to your video couple of days
ago. What was it?
Maybe what was? Tuesday that I posted yeah,
we're. Recording this on Thursday, I
listened to it Tuesday afternoonand I was driving and I'm not

(05:49):
very smart. I was having a little bit of a
hard time going. Wait, so he, what was he?
He did what? Like Needless to say, people are
getting creative and have alwaysbeen creative.
I tell my students all the time,if you worked as hard to just do
your work as you are finding a way to cheat, you would actually

(06:09):
have an easier time being successful.
Some of the cheating scandals I've had in my classes are just
truly genius really. And so I am well versed in this
sort of thing. But when we were talking this
morning, I said, well, I'm goingthrough a scam right now.

(06:34):
And you were like, really? And I said, yeah, like literally
right now you're scamming somebody.
What's that? You're scamming somebody.
No, no, no, I couldn't live withmyself.
I'm so I have I am so hard on myself.
If I ever do anything to somebody that could come across
as like harsh. I just like can't sleep at

(06:55):
night. That's that's my I put myself
through trauma. So I'm looking at my screen over
to the side here and making sureI get the details right.
So a 1989 Columbus Clippers, this is a true story.
This is happening right now. 1989 Columbus Clippers, Bernie

(07:17):
Williams, Cracker Jack, Columbuspolice card.
OK, just a Bernie Williams minorleague card.
As a Yankee fan, I'm like, I sawthat and I'm like, I want that.
So the guy I I watched it the guy was asking I think $25 on it
and he made me an offer of 20 and I countered him at 15.

(07:42):
So I paid $15.00 for this card and sent APSA 9 holder if that
matters to you feels. Like a good deal.
Yeah, and this is a good deal. I mean, I looked at comps and
and comps are in like the low 20s, but I was like 15 bucks.
I want this Bernie Williams cardbecause Bernie's Bernie's a junk
wax arrow guy, era guy. So even his rookie card, there's
just bazillions of them. It's like Randy Johnson kind of

(08:04):
thing. And so I'm like, I want the
card, so I bought it. So I bought it on.
I'm looking at the screen right now, August 5th, I paid $15 for
the card, $4.80 in shipping and $1.16 for tax for a total of
$20.96 that I paid for this Bernie Williams card.

(08:26):
All in just under $21.00. So I waited and you know, I'm
always kind of buying stuff and I sell stuff on eBay.
So you know, you get notifications of things being
shipped and oh it's, you know, this and that.
And I got a notification a couple days later. 2-3 days
later it says the card has been shipped and there's a tracking

(08:46):
number and the person. Dropped off with USPS I'm
guessing. Or they just printed out the
label because it said it said printing number, tracking number
identified, but it didn't have, I mean, I can click on track
track package right now and it says tracking number provided

(09:10):
and that was done on Friday, August 8th.
So, so three days. This is August 8th right now.
It is currently October 9th. So I bought the card on August
5th. On August 8th, a tracking number
was identified in New Jersey. And you know those New Jersey
guys, you know all those New Jersey guys, right?

(09:33):
And so I, I waited and I didn't really think anything of it
because it's a $15 card. It's like not that big a deal.
It's like one of those things you forgot.
Oh yeah, I bought this when it shows up and 2-3 weeks go by and
I'm like the card hasn't showingup.
I mean, he probably sent it ground, you know, it's probably

(09:54):
like the slowest economy thing ever.
And finally like I just kind of forgot about it and after about
a month I said I never got that card.
So I went back on and it said itwas tracking number on August
8th. So I'm like what the heck.
So I messaged the seller, I said, hey, what's the status on

(10:17):
the card, 'cause I'm like, maybehe printed the label, forgot
about it. It's sitting in a pile, right?
Yep. Never responded.
And I'm like, huh. So I, you know, I waited, I gave
him three or four days and then I went to eBay to see what
'cause this is an eBay deal. And I go, I go to eBay.
I go, what can I do? So, you know, it's like, what do

(10:38):
you do in this situation? And it says first you have to
contact the buyer after you contact the buyer again then you
can open a case. OK so I send the message Hey
dude I probably just really busybut my card that I bought a
month ago, any update on that? Now when I bought the card his

(11:00):
his rating was like 9697% 'causeI looked at it I'm like uh oh
did I buy it from a guy with like 0 sales?
It was a lots of sales, about a 9596% rating, which isn't good,
but it's not total. Disaster.
His rating has spiraled since then.
Oh yeah, so his rating is now around the 90% mark.

(11:25):
Here's where I have to ask. Maybe he died.
In all seriousness, yeah. Yeah, I mean it, that's not
impossible. But I did also look at some of
his other sales and he has gotten some positive feedback in
you know how it says like last month, last six months last year
or something like in the last month he's had some positive

(11:47):
feedback. So anyway, SO has.
It gotten negative feedback in the past month where people are
saying they didn't receive theiritem.
In the past six months he has. I'll pull it up right now.
By the way, the name of his eBaystore is Kind Collects.

(12:10):
It's probably his last name. So he's now at 9090.8% positive
feedback. 636 cards sold in the in this feedback in the past six
months. Lots of positives.
That means one out of every 9 feedback items he has received

(12:30):
is negative. That's not good.
It's not good, nothing in the last month, but in the last six
months, 35 positives, 1 neutral,5 negatives.
So let me give you an update on where we're at.
So then I didn't hear back and it said I went to open a case
and said now you can open a case.
So I opened a case with eBay andI'm thinking, oh, they're going

(12:53):
to e-mail me and say hey, we're refunding you your money. eBay
never responded. And I'm like, that seems weird.
So I again, I just kind of forgot about it.
I got stuff going on, I got life.
And this is a $15 Bernie Williams card, you know, and.
I'll mail you in 1990, tops Bernie.
How's that? Well, well, so I, I looked like

(13:17):
like a week ago and I, I was like, what the heck, eBay.
So when I saw your story, I'm like, what's going on with my
case? So I go back in there and I
click on it and it says like like look at the case update,
case update or case status and it says money back guarantee no

(13:39):
longer available because it was like 57 days ago that the sale
was finalized and this person doesn't accept returns.
And I'm like, wait a second, it's.
Just not even the returns are only good for people who mail
the card, right? So that the, but it said we

(14:00):
can't help you. Like it's it the eBay thing.
So then I go, I go like it says like contact us.
So I click on that like, oh, I'mcontacting you and it pulls up
and click that hard, the virtualassistant over to the side
right. The virtual assistant is now
helping me. And I say to the virtual
assistant, which is, you know, AI, I said, hey, yeah, got an

(14:23):
issue with the purchase. And it says, which one is it,
this or this or this? I click on it and it says,
sorry, we can't help you. That sale was 57 days ago or
whatever. And I'm like, what?
Like that's the point. So I'm thinking to myself, I'm
like, OK, if I were to go back, what should I have done
differently in this sale? Like you have to wait for the

(14:45):
card to show up and then once the card doesn't show up after,
you know, 2-3 weeks, you're like, OK, now I'm going to do
something. Then you contact the guy, then
you have to wait a few days and he doesn't respond.
Then I can open the case. So then the case is opened and
and then, then you check in on the case and they say we can't
help you. It was too long ago.

(15:07):
Like that's, that's the whole point.
It was happening. So I can't get anybody on the
phone. So I was, it was the start of
school today, today. And you brought this topic up.
I said, what is the status of mycase?
And it said we can call you in like 4 minutes if you click on
this. And like the bell was about to
ring. And I'm like, I can't have them

(15:28):
call. I can't have eBay calling me
right now about my Bernie Williams guard.
So so I think I got scammed out of $21.
Yeah, I think you did too. And I think you're you're
smarter scamming people out of $21.00 than you are scamming
people out of 1200 like the one in my video, because people are
going to drop it over 21 dollars.

(15:50):
People will not let it go over $1200 the vast majority of
people. That's a lot of money for most
people. $21.00 is a lot of moneyfor far fewer people than $1200
is. I mean in California that'll buy
me like 3 gallons of gas. I don't know what the price of

(16:11):
gas is, but I, I don't, I don't doubt it.
It's over $5. It's $3.10 I think I filled up
this morning for. It's over $5 and it's going up
because there was a refinery fire out here the other day, so
we got things styled in. Yeah, this is really good radio,

(16:33):
by the way. Scam talk.
Scam talk. Yes, we should.
This is our new podcast Talk Podcast.
It's a hook. We're setting that hook D scam
talk. No, this is surface issues.
This is yeah, I've, I love messaging people two weeks after
they create the tracking number.And my very passive aggressive
message is always, hey, do you think you're ever going to ship

(16:56):
this? Yeah.
Because it's been 2 weeks and you created a track #2 weeks
ago. And they always say, oh, that's
weird that I, I dropped it off with the USPS.
I'm not sure what's happening. I'll go in and see.
And then, you know, like an hourlater it's showing up with the

(17:17):
USPS because they. Went dropped it off.
One of the things too, to be honest with you, is I had I, I
had a few CC Sabathia, the Chrome rookies from and, and
when he made, when it was announced, he made the Hall of
Fame. I had like three of them or
something. So I'm like, I'm just going to

(17:39):
sell one of these. It's probably as hot right now
as it'll ever be. So I listed it and I sold it and
it was like a $23 card or something.
It was, it was ungraded. And I just put it up there
because I'm like, I don't need three of these.
And if I'm ever going to sell one, I sell one now.
Sort of like the day that Bill Walton died and I immediately
listed as autograph for sale because I'm a I don't know if
that's I'm a dark person, I guess.

(18:01):
And, and the guy like messaged me like like a month later, I
swear to you, I mail, I mail stuff fast like that day or the
next day. I get it out of there because I
don't want to think about it. And like at least three weeks
later, the guy emails me and he goes, Hey, man, like any idea
why this hasn't shown up? I'm like, are you serious like
this? I assumed it's been there like

(18:22):
weeks ago and he's like, no, it's not here.
And I was like, well, either gotlost or this guy's messing with
me And literally like 2 days later he messaged me and he
goes, oh, it got here. I mean, it took like a month for
this, this so, so it's not unheard of.
And that's one of the reasons I waited so long is because I had
that experience. And I'm like, well, I guess

(18:44):
maybe sometimes they just take the long route, you know?
And so it didn't seem impossible.
But now I, I, I don't think I'm going to be seen my Bernie
Williams. Card.
I don't think so either, and it's probably not worth your
time either. And that's what they bank on.
But it's worth my principle. Sure, right.

(19:06):
Sure. Yeah, I get what you're saying.
So next week we'll have an update because I'm going to I'm
going to have the virtual assistant give me a buzz and
we're going to have a little chat I.
Love the teaser? Yes, make sure you're following.
Make sure you subscribe. We'll have an update for you.
Next, I mean, if you're not subscribed, you might miss how
this turns out. Yeah.

(19:30):
Any other scam issues you got going on that you want to talk
about or you want to go into ourour second topic?
Scam issues? No, I think.
I think that's it. Next topic though is I think
it's pretty meaty. OK, well let's talk about it
because you said one of the things we could talk about is
the 3 Kings card. And I said, what's that?

(19:50):
Yeah, which shows you how connected I am with the modern
hobby. Tell us about the Three Kings
card. The. 3 Kings card is a new
thing. So first of all, collectors have
been demanding, not demanding, begging Tops fanatics to do
something that benefits collectors.
Collectors like you and me. Just collectors, right?

(20:11):
Do something that shows that they care about collectors and
not just the big Breakers and the the big people.
And they have come out with a new system that they are pumping
all over social media and it is a reward system for collecting.

(20:31):
And so far, this sounds good, right?
A reward system for collecting aplayer's three best rookie
cards, they say. And those three best rookie
cards, I'm thinking like Topps Chrome.
Topps Chrome refractor. No, it is their MLB debut.
Patch auto one of one. It is their.

(20:54):
First Bowman Super fractor auto one of one and it is their
rookie Super fractor auto one ofone.
If you have all three of those, you then are rewarded with a
free 3 Kings, one of one autograph card of that player.

(21:15):
Yeah, and. Tops is touting this as some big
advancement in collecting. But what they don't?
Seem to grasp and what they havecertainly heard if they're
paying attention to any of theirsocial media because people are
are. Talking about how tone.
Deaf they are is that this is appealing to like 3 people in

(21:37):
the world. How many people can possibly
afford all three of those cards,let alone obtain all three of
them? If you own one of those cards
now you know you can hold it hostage for a wealthy person who
might want it. The value of those have now gone
up. People are going to hold them

(21:58):
hostage, and only a very tiny number of people will ever be
able to get them. Or worse, it will make people
gamble even further, buying moreboxes, buying into more breaks,
hoping to get these carts in order to get the massive new hit

(22:20):
the Tops fanatics is going to pump.
The crap out of. Yeah.
See out in in in California northern but central Northern
California along the coast is Pebble Beach and Pebble Beach
has a very famous Rd. through the golf courses in these, you

(22:40):
know 10 twenty $30 million homescalled 17 mile drive and it
would be like a local church saying we need to do something
to give back. So we're going to give away free
lemonade out on 17 mile drive because those people don't have
anything going for them and theyjust can't catch a break.
So what we need to do is we needto do something nice for the

(23:05):
residents on 17 mile drive. Not the inner city, not the
normal person in the middle class, but the 17 Mile Dr.
residents. They really need something like
this. Yeah.
It. It's and, and part of the
problem and people talk about wax prices and they're too high

(23:27):
and, and they've driven people out because it's unaffordable.
Well, part of the reason is because all of the in, in when I
go to Lake Tahoe, OK, when I go to Lake Tahoe, there are
literally penny slots. And then there are slots that
are like $250 a spin. And I go to the penny slot area

(23:47):
'cause I get to participate and have a little bit of fun and
have a drink and sit with my wife and laugh and oh, I almost
got it. Whatever.
And then lose my money, my, my $18.00 that I brought with me or
whatever. But they're serving me with an
ability to participate. But what's happened now is all
of the products that the margin is in with the whales, it's in

(24:11):
the high limit room and in the 100 and $200 spin slots.
And so now you walk into Lake Tahoe and there's 1000 slot
machines and 998 of them are for$100 each.
And two of them are for the penny slots.
And that's basically what we're doing with cards is we've,

(24:31):
we've, we've eliminated the everyday collector sort of
participation level. Like there's no longer a Toyota
Corolla or a Camry. It's, you know, only a Lexus.
All they have is Lexus IS now and nobody can buy a car unless
you buy a Lexus and the. Casino is of course, as they

(24:53):
should be, only promoting the people who have won thousands,
10s of thousands of dollars. They're not showing the people
who have lost their life savingsand what they're.
Saying is, you know, we're goingto take the 10 people who won
the biggest jackpot this month and we're going to put them in a
drawing for a huge jackpot, Yeah.

(25:14):
Congrats on Congrats. On being wealthy and lucky,
we're going to make. You even wealthier?
Yeah, make a mix. In a Taco bar for the guys at
the penny slots and this is not.This is not anti wealth.
This is not. Jealousy.
Although I'm jealous of course, but it's just wealth, right?
Me too. This is just a tone deaf

(25:35):
response to collectors by Fanatics and Collect, where they
have millions of regular collectors out there who would
love to have something. And I'm gonna cover this on my
Sunday Clearing the Bases episode too.
Somebody has put out a great kind of a plea to Topps fanatics
saying nobody asked for this. Here are some great things you

(25:56):
could do that would be inexpensive for Topps fanatics
and would make hobbyists, collectors very, very happy.
And it would get so much publicity and it would draw a
lot of business to them that would make that would bring them
collectors. And right now they're only
attracting the the gambling investing type people because

(26:21):
that's what they're promoting and they're leaving behind the
collectors. And I know people are going to
say, hang on, they're both collectors, right?
I get that, I get that, I totally do.
But there's different types of collectors and.
That that. Type of collector makes up the
bulk of the hobby. When So back in the early 90s, I

(26:43):
think it was 1992. You might you, you might
remember this, but it's when Tops started having Tops gold
inserts. And so it would it, it was just
the foil was gold. It wasn't like the whole card
was well, Chrome cause Chrome wasn't around yet, but it was
like the foil was gold and it was a special insert.
But in every pack there was thislittle card that had a scratch

(27:08):
off thing and it had like 10 scratch offs.
And if you scratched off the onethat was the gold winner, then
you'd mail it in and they would send you like two or three gold
cards. But they were a little different
because they didn't say just they weren't the gold foil.
It's a gold foil. And it said like winner on it.
So it was like not, it wasn't the pack pulled gold, but it was

(27:31):
a different kind of gold. And it was like everybody kind
of had a little, a little thing.So if you got your pack and your
pack was awful, you had a chanceto be able to win a gold card
even if your pack didn't have any anything of value.
And it was a pretty cool idea. Do you remember this?
Absolutely. So I don't.

(27:52):
Know if you were aware of this, but you could see through?
Yeah, I'm just reading. About this maybe six months ago,
really so. We, we went to a card show and
this guy had an entire table full of the gold winners.
And we were like, how did you win all of these?
You have amazing luck. And he's like, no, he goes, if

(28:14):
you go into like a dark room, like a dark closet and you hold
a flashlight up to the back of the card, you can see through
the the the scratch off stuff. It's like a scratch off lottery
ticket. And you can see which one is the
winner and you can scratch it off and send them in.
And I just do it with every pack.
And so I have all these gold winners.

(28:35):
And so I remember being jazzed. So I like bought a couple of
packs and I got the little cardsand I went home with my dad and
we went into his master closet. We turn off the lights and we
shine through and we're like, yeah, we won.
It was like this whole thing. But but the thing about that, it
was a way for an average person to have some sort of special win

(29:00):
even in a pack that maybe didn'thave what you were hoping it had
in it. And it was it that was a good
idea. And they're they're they're
blanking on that right now. What they need to go back to
that. And I think your whole point, if
you collected like the bass, youknow, the base card and the,
the, the refractor, just like the silver regular refractor and

(29:24):
then maybe any other parallel and you do it, then you get
something like then then more people can be a participant in
that or, or I don't know, or youget a discount or something in a
TCD. B type of situation.
If fanatics were to build something like that, I know they
never would because it wouldn't make them enough money.
And that's the most important thing is that, that it makes

(29:45):
them a lot of money. If you collected 100 of a single
player, 100 cards of a player, you they'll mail you a special
card. Doesn't have to be worth a lot
of money. It could just be a $5 card that
commemorates you getting to 100.Get to 500 unique cards of,

(30:05):
let's say, Mike Greenwell 'causehe passed away today and I have,
Oh, did he? Really.
Yeah, Thyroid. Cancer.
So you get to 500 Mike Greenwellcards and they commemorate that
with a card or a pin or something that would say, we
appreciate you, Congrats on getting this.

(30:27):
Greg is in. Case you're listening here, He's
he's backed up. I think he's going to show
something. It's got to be a Mike Greenwell
card. We try.
Let me see how well organized. I am.
Oh, I'm so good. Nice, nice.
All right, I know this. Is a podcast so you're not
supposed to show stuff on the screen but.

(30:47):
I-80. 7 tops. I was a Rodger.
Clemens I was a big Rodger Clemens fan, as we know, and
pretty much every time Rodger Clemens pitched in Oakland from
about 1988 until. Well after 2.
Thousand I was at the game like pretty much every time.

(31:09):
And so I started kind of casually rooting for the Red Sox
and I've talked about this and Ibrought some of my my cards and
my 88 tops card. 88 tops right here.
These are 88 tops. And.
And I had them in the little box, you know, remember the
you'd shut it and kind of snap shut and you'd kind of the

(31:30):
little thing it open. It's a blue box.
Right. No, mine were clear.
But I'm sure they had different colors.
And before the game, Ellis Burkscame over and he signed and I
got that with. I sent that to my friend who
lives out in the East Coast because he is a Red Sox fan.
And that one was cool because somebody else had a Sharpie and

(31:54):
he just used the Sharpie to keepsigning.
So it was a black Sharpie. I'm an idiot little kid who's,
you know, in 1988 doesn't know what he's doing.
So I showed up with my cards anda ballpoint pen.
So I'm going to show on the screen my mic green while you
can't hardly even see it. Can't even see it.
Yeah, I can kind of see it and it's.

(32:16):
Ballpoint pen Mike Greenwell Andthis is when Mike Greenwell was
just a star and Ellis Birch was a star.
He was the MVP, that. Year if Canseco had not been
juicing and I was so. Jazzed for this.
This was this was my first in person auto.
Wow, that's a. Special one.
Yeah, Really. Really.

(32:37):
Special and and I remember him being really cool and signing a
lot and that meant a lot. So I'm sorry to hear that Mike
Greenwell held this card. Very cool.
That's awesome. Yeah, All right.
What were we talking? About I have no idea it.
Probably wasn't important. I have not.
I have no. Idea what we're talking about 3
Kings cards. Fanatics were going to collect.

(32:58):
So you, you made a great point about the three kings cards and,
and I guess we sounded sort of anti wealth.
Therefore I sounded anti wealth there.
I'm not suggesting I have. I, I love the fact that if you
are in a country that we live ina country where if you go from

(33:19):
having nothing and you build andyou work and you reinvest and
you expand like our buddy Tony has done, that you can come out
and, and change generational futures in this country.
I, I love that about the country.
And I don't have a problem with there being massive chase cards

(33:40):
in products, but when when the new marketing thing focuses
around. The massive.
Products that's already that arealready massive, It's like, what
are we doing? Like, I get it.
Because what's going to be on social media, what are going to,
what's going to get all the attention?
When the first person gets the first 3 Kings card, that card is

(34:04):
going to be a huge card and everyone's going to talk about
it and there's going to be pictures of it and it's going to
be a big chase and, and it'll get attention.
And what won't get attention is some little kid getting this
little redemption in the mail. It's all about.
What's going to draw it? And so that's my issue is we
need to be doing more to get kids and entry level in

(34:27):
collectors in the hobby to have good experiences.
So they want to stay. That's my issue.
It's not wealth. It's we need to be doing things
to reach that group. You know what what about like a
report card, a report card redemption.
So any kid who has, you know, like a 3.5 GPA in school from K

(34:53):
all the way up to 12, you send submit an image with your report
card and they send you a pack orsomething like that would be a
great thing, right? I love that.
I love that. They would never do that though.
They would never do that and. That's why they'll never hire me
for the marketing department. But if if they are hiring, they

(35:13):
definitely look me up [e-mail].
Yes, as we trash them here. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
We'll we'll edit out. All the negative things you said
so that they hire you. Yeah, wow.
It's just so tone deaf when there are so many collectors out

(35:34):
there and and when they have a monopoly as they do.
Yeah, they can. Do this.
And they'll be just fine. Fanatics is probably I don't
know how much they're worth. The sports card division of
Fanatics is worth billions and they only paid half a billion
for it. So they're doing something.
Right, let me let. Me, let me go there.
Let me take this down a little side Rd. the the ability to have

(36:00):
a monopoly of licensed material.Like what are your thoughts on
that? Because, you know, for a long
time it was like tops only, right?
And then all of a sudden in, in the late 70s, there's a lawsuit,
I think it was Fleer versus Topps.
It was Fleer, yeah. The lawsuit was.
Actually filed in the 60s I think and it was that long. 15

(36:20):
plus. Years to actually come to
fruition and and so. It got broken up where not only
Topps could have the license andthat's why Topps, Donrus, Fleer
all were making cards from the, you know, like 1981 or whatever
on and but then we went back to that, like, what is it?

(36:42):
What was the lawsuit then? The lawsuit was.
Being able to send had somethingto do with them sending cards
with gum, and so Tops was sending cards with gum and Fleer
said, well, we don't want to send cards with gum, we want to
send it with stickers or something.

(37:02):
And that's what ended up winningthe the deal, the lawsuit, and
then Don resent it with puzzle pieces.
And that that's, I don't know why they're able to get away
with it now. Probably because the industry is
much smaller and there's no there's not much the government

(37:23):
will do against anti competitivecompanies that are worth a
billion dollars or $2 billion. You have to be worth 100 billion
now for the government to come after you.
Yeah. Yes, so they're not.
That's why they haven't audited me yet.
It's 'cause I'm more than 100 billion, right?
You're only worth 1. Or 2 billion.
Well, you know, it's early. Yeah, I it, it just seems like,

(37:49):
do you think, I mean, that's we agree that it's bad.
I I mean, I want Panini and Fanatics to be able to have
licensed ability to make cards, don't you?
Absolutely. Yeah, and upper deck and upper
deck I, I. Love Upper Deck products.
In fact, upper Deck remains to me a very special company.

(38:12):
Like I love Upper Deck. I've loved upper deck since the
first time my eyes, you know, saw upper deck product.
I think they were innovative. They got, you know, back in the,
what was it, early 90s, they gotTiger Woods and and Gretzky and
Jordan and some exclusive deals where they were doing some, some

(38:34):
big name big time stuff with those guys in cards and autos
and stuff. And I think they've done some
really great things. But they can't make.
Baseball cards, right? This is insane.
Yeah, and they're. Doing some innovative things
with hockey cards too. I, I think I, I remember reading

(38:55):
about they're actually putting ain patch cards like AQR code on
them and you can go and watch a video of the game.
You'd see this, the details of the game that it was from and
highlights from it that was. Fantastic, I think I'm pretty
sure. That was upper deck.
It's probably six months ago that I saw that because and I

(39:17):
know. It's would be expensive.
I know it'd be hard to do that, but if if you could have the
picture of the player on the card be from the game where the
player wore that particular itemthat the patch is from, like
it's not just a patch from a game.

(39:38):
And there's a that picture is from the game.
He had that jersey on that there's a piece of and you could
QR code the back and watch a clip from that game with that
jersey. I mean, that's like instead of
this may or may not have been player worn, you know?

(39:59):
Oh my, what are we doing? So it's not from any specific
shelf from Dick's Sporting Goods, right?
Yeah. And then?
The least, the least important part of this, but just a little
bit of a annoyance I guess or a nuisance is the one card they
showed which is Junior Caminero card 33 Kings.

(40:20):
I can't even read the inscription.
It says like Tokaro or something.
Did you, could you read it? Did you see it?
Yeah, it's. So, So what you're referring to,
we didn't explain it earlier, but the card is not just
autographed. The card has like a little
inscription from the player and the inscription that he made,
let me look it up because I couldn't really read it either.

(40:43):
I'm like, either you can't spell, maybe it was a different
language or or it says. To and it has the name of the
person it's going to and I just couldn't figure out what it was.
T it looks like it says T OK ERAor A or O.

(41:03):
Tekera. What does that mean?
I don't know. I'm gonna just for your sake and
my sake, I'm gonna put it on thescreen there.
Tokera Tokuran, Tokura. Tokura the King.
No to to. My Spanish, wait, wait, hold on.

(41:26):
My Spanish is coming out to tokar is to play, right?
Tokar like a playing instrument,like you play a flute.
You tokar la flauta or whatever,right?
That's what tokar means in Spanish.
Shout out to Miss Fernandez Senora Senorita Fernandez,
Vacaville High School Class of 1997.

(41:49):
Isn't that what that is? Tokara the king so like to play
the king or the king plays? Put it in a translate hold on
Tokara the King translation. Here we go.
What do we got, Tokara? Nothing.

(42:10):
Was a 19th. Century king of Manambu Kingdom.
Of the people of. Madagascar.
That's Towera. Though, Oh, that is Towera.
Yeah, there's, there's, it meansnothing.
It means absolutely nothing. I'm convinced that.

(42:34):
This is a meaningless inscription.
Tokara. What?
Maybe we're saying it wrong. Treasure Precious.
Item O Takara is Japanese No no.It's treasure.
Takara though. Or is it?

(42:57):
Tokern, is that an AI mean? Let's just OK, let's just take a
step back here for just a second.
I mean it's handwriting, bro. What are we doing?
Yes, what are we doing here? King is legible, though.
Yeah, but that that handwriting,it's it's not an N because it

(43:19):
doesn't it's nothing like the N in King.
It's definitely Tokara. That's ATI.
Don't know, I, I, I it seems like maybe he could have written
something. So this person.
Says it says to Kern, the king. These will be customized for the

(43:39):
name of the collector who redeems it.
So he doesn't believe in. Spaces between words,
apparently. Caro took Kern, the king of all
the. Names to use is Kern the 1 you
would have chosen as your to somebody.

(44:00):
Somebody's name is. Kern.
There's a Kern. County in in California.
Apparently this. Same collector.
Kern also has Jackson Cheerios. So the guy actually.
Did this, so this is actually real.
Apparently so. The guy.
Has all three cards and now has the Three Kings card.

(44:23):
Apparently somebody named and his name is Kern.
That's what I'm reading. So that is an.
N, even though that N looks nothing like the other N Yeah.
Yeah, Collected acclaimed both of these, Jackson Cheerio and
Junior Caminero, in September. It's also interesting.
That the only AL East? Well, I guess the Orioles and

(44:46):
the Rays didn't make the playoffs, but three of the five
made the playoffs and then had to fight each other out to have
the right to play for the Pennant.
Nice work, MLB, We are. At 45 minutes, yeah, we're, I
know we. Need to wrap it up.
I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm still steaming from last

(45:07):
night. This is Thursday.
It's Thursday, right? Yankees, Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, Yankees.
Hey, I'm a Red Sox. Fan I know I.
Know and and that's why you're giving me so much heat about it,
but I'm not giving you any heat.You're giving me heat.
Stop giving me heat, Greg. Always a pleasure it was.

(45:30):
It was and also. Appreciate everybody for
listening or watching, whatever your preference is.
Yeah, yeah, Everybody out there,I will ask this if you've not
subscribed, I don't ask for subscriptions on on my YouTube
channel at this point. If you don't like me, it's fine.
But we're trying to be able to reach more people with this

(45:52):
because I think this is fun and I think people would like it if
they get exposed to it. So if you don't mind subscribing
to this one, whether it be on your favorite podcast format or
on YouTube, we would appreciate it.
Absolutely. All right.
Let's say that outro. Music Outro.
Music coming right now.