Steve Grad chops it up E403

Tyler redick here from 2311 Racing Victory Lane. Yu-Gi-Oh it's even better with Chumba by my side. Race to chumbacasino.com let's Chumba. No purchase necessary VTW Group void where prohibited by law. CTNCs21+ sponsored by Chumba Casino. Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? Driving high will get you a dui. And if you're wondering if law enforcement can tell you're driving high, well, everyone else can. Friends, I can tell you drove high. Parents, I can tell when you drive high. Relatives, I can tell you drove here high, didn't you? So what makes you think law enforcement can't. I can tell if you feel different, you drive different. Drive high. Get a dui. Paid for by NHTSA Sports Carnation. The hobby is the people. Weekly news and interviews. It's your number one source. Sports Carnation Hobby is the people. Sports Card Nation. Attention Sports Card Nation viewers. What up, kids? It's your boy, Scott Hansen from NFL Red Zone. Oh, we're back. Blue Ice back. The hobby never ends. And before you know it, I'm gonna be on your screen again, rocking that octobox, knocking the bottom out of the witching hour and announcing seven hours of Red Zone football. You watch Red Zone. Just save some time Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday to check out John in Sports Card Nation. Let's have a great season, people. What is up, everybody? Welcome to episode 403 of Sports Card Nation. Happy to be back with you. Real quick, I think. Just wanted to announce the winners of our 400th episode giveaway. I'm only going to use first names. Drake one-of-one a card package as well as Richard. Debbie one-of-one a wax box from Upper Deck. Travis one-of-one a small box and some slab guards and two card ladder Pro Yearly memberships went out to Jason and Daryl. So Those were our 400 episode giveaway winners. A lot of entries. We can only, you know, we randomized the list and. And six names came out and that was how it. It went down. So congrats to those folks. But thank you all for listening and entering and we appreciate. I wish I could just give everyone a Prizm Unfortunately, that's not how that works. But I do have free stickers if anyone. If you ever want a free sticker, just reach out to me on social media or email and we could figure out a way to get that to you. So. All right, so let's thank our sponsors, SEC Iron Sports Cards, Sports Collectors Digest, Hobby Hotline, Upper Deck Card Ladder and the Certified trading Card association and, and not necessarily in that order. That's just how I rattle them off. All right, first time guest this week and next week, how that is the case. I don't know how it's taken this long of, of the show, but again, that's more on me than an indictment on the guest. That's an indictment on me. But as the cliche goes, better late than never and hopefully have them back on down the line as well. Steve Grad, one of the preeminent autographed authentication experts that this hobby has ever seen and, and maybe number one on that list. And we're going to talk about a gamut of, of things, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly of autographs and certification and, and all that stuff. So, you know, it's not gonna all be roses and, and you know, sweet music. It's gonna be some. We gotta talk about the reality of autographs and the scandals and the forgeries and the fugazi's, right? And we're going to talk about the good stuff too. So we're going to talk about both sides of the coin, as they say. So Steve Grad is our guest. He's branching out more on his own. He's always had his own business, but sort of flying under his own flag exclusively, which I think is very cool and good for him and got to talk with him some at the national and just really good dude. Just enjoys what he does and is passionate and knowledgeable and you can't put a price on that. So he is our guest this week and next. So without further ado, let's get this show started. Real excited to have my next guest on esports Car Nation guest line. Somehow he is a hobby. Star wars or somehow we. We've never had him on this podcast yet and that's probably more me than him. Actually. I think it is more me than him, but better late than never, as, as we always say. Mr. Steve Grad, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I, I love that intro. It's intense. It, it's, it's all downhill after that. I feel like we're gonna watching a football game or it's a Zebra Bowl. Yu-Gi-Oh well, I'm a former former high school football player and high school varsity coach, so maybe that has a, a little something, something to do with it. I appreciate it. Thank you. You know, you've been in the hobby a while. You know, you grew up in Chicago. For you. When did, when did hobby start again? Many people may know this, but this Being your first time, sure. Really about 1980. Went to first baseball card show back in Chicago. For people who live out in that area, they used to have a show. It was called the. It was at the Hillside Holiday one-of-one It's right off at 290 and 294 area. And for people that head out of the city, it's off the Eisenhower. But it's the first time that I went to a card show and I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh Because I collected cards starting probably when I was about seven. And I, you know, I had Star wars and football and some baseball. But then seeing that show in person, it really was like, oh my God, there's tables filled with stuff, there's autographs. Bob Fleer was sitting in a Corner charging like $2 an autograph. But that was the first time. And then I first went to the national in 83, so. And I've gone to 31 or 32, something like that of the Nationals and you know, God, the Chicago shows in March and November and I've been to shows all across the country for years. I've kind of toned it back though, just because it's. The grind is pretty hardcore. So. And it's real. So I'm just keep to the national now, pretty much. Yu-Gi-Oh It's the Zebra I call it the Zebra bowl of the hobby. And I guess if you're going to do one, one, that's it, right. I mean, it is the one we circle, all of us, or majority of us circle that week. The nice thing we know it's what week. It pretty much is every year. I mean, even with myself, I'm in the teaching industry, so I let my supervisor for summer school. No, I one-of-one be here probably these three or four days during the week and I'll be following Monday. Yu-Gi-Oh it's always a great time to get together and see people you haven't seen in, you know, a year, two years. And it goes. The thing is, you know, you start on a Tuesday, you wrap. I mean, I do at least, and then I wrap up on a Sunday. But it's like it goes like that. It goes so fast and you don't think it does, but you're there from like, you know, eight, nine in the morning till 6:00 clock at night and it seems like it's just a flash. I'm usually glad when it's over though, to be honest with. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And that's just the show hours and then the events in some cases post show. Right. That we do Whatnot Occasionally or dinner with friends and Whatnot. So, you know, for me, and I'm sure probably likewise for you, like some days you're not getting back to a hotel till 10, 11 or, or perhaps even later, depending on, on the event and who's involved. So, Yu-Gi-Oh you're, you're right. It goes quick. And then at the end, like, you, you're, you're just, you need like a vacation from the show, you know, it is. That is nice. And I think, you know, I think the thing that is really crazy is I see the evolution of the hobby, how it's changed and you know, it's always focused centrally around cards, cards, cards, cards, cards. Everything else kind of has its place, you know, but cards have powered it. And when I look back and reflect on it, after all these years that I've been, you know, involved in this, I wish I would have probably just stayed with cards on some level because of the, you know, I kind of scratched my head thinking about all the great stuff I had and it's all gone. But I wish in a way I would have kind of stayed with it. But, you know, it is what it is. You know, I grew up in that 80s era of cards, which wasn't as, you know, wasn't spectacular, so in the 90s either. So, you know, there were some good issues and some good cards. But, you know, we were growing up, you know, with, you know, Topps, which was overproduced and Topps. And you know, all that stuff was just so much of it, you know, I took the autograph route, I guess, because I, to me, at least in the time, and I still do, I find it really fascinating to be involved on that aspect of the business. For me, at least that's a, you know, it's a passion. And, you know, I collected signed cards for years. I've had so many and gotten so many in my life signed, but I like it. But the autographs is where, you know, that's kind of my calling area. And so that's, you can correct me if I'm. I'm wrong, Steve. Like getting cars signed maybe at a ballpark or an event, that's where it started for, for you. I mean, obviously we didn't have like Certified autos and packs as we do now. It's, it's. A lot's changed, you know, and to get them signed, you know, I would go stand, you know, inside the ballpark. And back in Chicago, there was some old school collectors. I mean, there's, there's guys that were still Bringing like, you know, 5,000 count boxes of cards fil. You know, for the Texas Rangers. So, you know, these guys were out there hardcore collectors and then the hotels. I did all that stuff too, so. But it was always cards. And then I elevated my game to photos at some point, which, you know, in hindsight, it's weird. You've seen the explosion of signed cards. What happens? And it's, it's, it's, it's at points where I always thought it would kind of just stop, you know, like, okay, cards are cool. But now it keeps going on and on. I mean, I just saw the, the Jackie Robinson. Maybe it's a 48 or 49. Bowman over a million dollars. You know, it's going to go for a lot of money in a. And you know, the Topps mantles. And when those hit auction, they go crazy. I wish I would have gotten one signed here. Yu-Gi-Oh Does that surprise you? Some of the values we're seeing? I, obviously I'm a Jackie guy that's out of my budget. But you know, he died young in October of 72, you know, didn't, you know. And signing wasn't like it was now. Like it wasn't as big of a deal like we see it now. Do the values, what some of these cards are bringing on the auction block catch you off guard or is it at this point it's sort of, you know, expected. I'm waiting for the next, next shoe to drop. I mean, you know, I, I think, I'm not sure, but maybe you know better than I do. When's the last time a Rusign Gowdy hit the mark? And I, but I think they, I think there was three years ago maybe or it was a. You know, but they sold there maybe that half million range in there. Yu-Gi-Oh And I, I think bring more. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I think you're right. Now, now how we see how things are going and I see how the marketplace is going, I think those cards would even, I mean you, you might top a million on that. Same with Garrick. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh No, no doubt. And a guy, again, another example of an athlete, unfortunately, that passed away at a younger age than they should have. And you know, not to make it about dollar signs or quant, but when obviously anyone passes away at a younger age, there's more likely less, less autographs out there in circulation in comparison to maybe the, the opposite end. You know, you mentioned, you mentioned Bob Fleer and I kind of chuckled when you mentioned him. I'm in. I'm originally From New York City, I'm here in Syracuse, Central Newark now. So I get to Cooperstown quite a bit. I've been in. In Syracuse a while. And it's funny, I'd make three, four, five trips a year, let's say, to Cooperstown, Steve. And like, every time I was there, like, Bob Fleer was like, always there, just signing away. Zebra nice guy, Zebra friendly, love sharing, like, stories from his career and things like that. But I joke with friends. Like, I crossed the street to another block in Cooperstown and I just seen him at the table and he was on, like, the next street too. So obviously I, I jest, but it just. He was working. He was working it hard. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And so, you know, when you, you look at that, he's unfortunately no longer with us either, but no shortage of, of Bob Fleer autos on the market. And listen, I don't want to stop. I have to think. You made me think of something. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh So you're out in Syracuse. So I. When years ago when I worked at auction house, I sourced one of the best signed card collections that I've ever seen. Was out of Syracuse. Syracuse. There you go. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And the guy' was Jeff Mori. I don't know it. I don't, I don't. I don't know him by name. I don't know if he's a show. I, I set up a show, so maybe I've. I've run into him on a show without knowing his name. He probably attended shows. He used to write a newsletter back before the days of like, the Internet. But it was around, you know, in 2001, 2002 was called the autograph report tar. And he wrote that. Yu-Gi-Oh And he was based out of Syracuse. Like, he had like Ernie Davis index cards, stuff like that, because Munson played in the Miners there, so. But he, you know, but he had. He'd gone to the hall of Fame every year and starting in, I want to say, 52, and he started getting the guys back then and he'd tell me the stories about it. It really. He did really well in auction. But this is back in 2001. I can't imagine what his stuff went for, would go for now. He had just some amazing cards, a lot of nice ballpoint stuff from the 40s and 50s. It was gorgeous. The cards were beautiful. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh there we go. Syracuse reference and cool. You know, and that shows you, right? The hobby and the autograph hobby. It's a, it's a, A worldwide thing in a worldwide. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh let's talk a little bit about you. Like how many again? You know, how many autographs would you say you have in your PC yourself? You know, it's all dwindled down. It was, it was a high number at one point because I had specialized really in Star wars and Star. And I had the three sets signed from tops 7780 and 83. So for Star Wars Empire Jedi had all three of them, almost all completed. And in May of 22 I put them in Goldin and got together with Ken and auctioned off five just Star wars lots. And the cards did great and they went to a friend of mine. So a friend bought one of the, he bought the big Star wars set and I put a lot of time and effort in that. I worked on it for years. But you know, like collecting now I don't really. I'm not, I'm kind of more on the fringe. I'm not really doing anything anymore. Like, like John. The thing is I got so crazy intense about it and leading up until like Covid and it got to just be too much and I think I needed to find a place where I was able to have a happy medium because too much of it was just too much. And I do like collecting but I think that I would rather just collect the, the green dollar bills and put those away now, you know. And listen, collectibles are awesome and obviously autogr. I have to tell you it's been my backbone of my life. You know, it's been my, my, my whole life has been involved with autographs. But at some point I would rather just enjoy myself and not worry about getting this guy in this card and that guy on that card and getting these photos signed and I need him on my poster. And that's what it kind of devolved into in terms of collecting wise where I was so into it. You know, I'm worried about getting like the, the 17th stormtrooper on my Topps cards. You know, like it was just too much. So I had to, to just kind of just draw it and I still have pieces I like. Yu-Gi-Oh a lot. You know, I mean there's stuff that I wouldn't ever want to get rid of but there's some stuff that I, I stay goodbye to and I don't mind. I have no issues with it because I want to let someone else enjoy it too. And especially with the Star wars stuff I had so much of it was, it was getting kind of like a sickness. I mean I, I was up upwards of four to six hundred autographs of Hamill, Ford, and Fisher each at one time in 2019. So that's too much, you know, like, it got to be way too much. The. Obviously the cards have changed values so much. Excuse me. You know, now they call them, which is crazy. You know, Mark Hamill signed rookie card. I get a kick out of that. But those things have gone crazy. And I really enjoyed collecting all that stuff for years. But at the end of the day, I'm glad I could do other stuff, you know, or if I want to, quite truthfully, if I want to do something to My House or we want to go on a nice vacation, we know we can. So those things are more important than collecting. Yu-Gi-Oh And we're probably. I might be a little bit older than you. I get that. It makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people probably nod and write that right there. Time to hear from one of our great sponsors. But Sports Card Nation will be right back after that. Iron Sports Cards is your number one source for all your PSA and other grading submissions. Their elite status improves turnaround times. Heck, they even provide the card savers. Their chat rooms provide updates on all your submissions. They also offer wax options and single cards to cover all the bases. Check them out on Facebook at ironsports cards group or on the web at ironsportscards.com or even give them a call at 1-877-iron-PSA. Rob's got you covered. Tyler Redick here from 2311 Racing, Victory Lane. Yu-Gi-Oh it's even better with Chumba by my side. Race to chumbacasino.com let's Chumba. No purchase necessary VTW Group Void where prohibited by law. CTNCs21 plus, sponsored by Chumba Casino. Looking for the best of VRBO. Discover Vacation Rentals of the year. Top quality homes guests love from across the country. Our curated list takes the guesswork out of planning so you can spend less time searching and more time packing. Book your next day now with vrbo. Let's go. You are listening to the Sportscard Nation podcast is. It's like asking a parent, you know, what's your. Who's your favorite kid? If they have multiple kids, obviously. But do you have something in your collection? Like, do you have one thing that, like, you know, people always ask me, john, if you could only keep one card, who is it? It's. It was. Speaking of Jackie Robinson would be my. My Jackie Leaf rookie. I don't want to just keep that one car. But, you know, to answer the question, is there A piece you own that, like, you. You know, And I guess I get it's a tough question, but is there there one piece that, like, that's your. Your sort of showcase or centerpiece for you for whatever reason? Maybe the first one or. Or just one that, you know, I think that the one piece I would want to just keep if I could. I probably can. It's not even that big of a deal, but I. It's. It's. It was a funny story. When it happened, it was cool, but in. My favorite player growing up was Carlton Fisk, so I loved him, and he was a great player, obviously, for the Red Sox and White Sox. But I think in spring training of 90, I went down there, and the White Sox were currently going from, like, they had this old rickety stadium in Downtown. It's called Ed Smith Stadium. But they moved to this new stadium in Sarasota, and it was much nicer, but they had to change at the old stadium and then drive to the new stadium. So I'm at the old stadium waiting for players. I see Fisk, and I say, hey, I got a. And I knew him. You know, we'd known each other. I. I don't know if it's creepy or stalkerish, but, you know, I used to go see him in the off season. He lived right by where I lived. I'm gonna stick up for you. That's your guy, right? So. And, Yu-Gi-Oh I get. But I got. Yu-Gi-Oh I'd gotten to know him, and, you know, I saw him. He goes, hey, follow me to the other ballpark. Let's talk over there. So I followed him, go through this neighborhood, couple neighborhoods, like 4 or 5 miles. We get to the new ballpark. He parks, I park right next to him, and I pull out this bat, and he goes, man, where'd you get this bat? That. That. That's game ready. That's out of my locker. And I had bought it at a show for like 50 bucks. You know, it was at a Dior table. And I said, I just bought it a show. And he goes, oh. He's like, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a gamer for that one right now. Let's swap. Because he wanted to use it, so he gave me a. He gave me a game used bat, which he signed to me, which I like. It's not about the value. I've owned his jerseys before, and I've had his rookie bat and, you know, tons of stuff signed by him, but just probably that piece would be it. Maybe something Harrison Ford, maybe the first Harrison Ford autograph I got, maybe that would be about it. But other than that, my wife's happy to hear it all be gone, so she makes her happy. I hear you. I have one of those too. So is there, you know, you talk about meeting athletes and, and you know, obviously get to know them in certain circumstances. Is there an athlete that, that sort of make, you know, I, I've gotten asked this question because I've met quite a bit myself, even though I'm not you. Is there an athlete that you're still in all of or you get a little like tongue tied or not at this. If it was maybe. Maybe. Yu-Gi-Oh maybe. Maybe Harrison Ford, but probably Michael Jordan, you know, always. And I had met, probably met Jordan 30 or 40 times, maybe, maybe more than that, maybe 50. And I worked in the media, so I used to see him all the time. I worked in Chicago media. But probably those guys. And it was I a charge getting both those autographed. When I got them in person, it was really cool. Even, you know, getting Jordan going back to like 87, 88, 89, 90. Getting them in those years was, it was always a great time. Yu-Gi-Oh Would you, would you agree? I mean, it's probably, I'll, I'll ac to your expertise. Steve Jordan or Mano, what's the most forged athlete in, in the industry? Okay, so I, I, okay, if you ask me, if you asked me like maybe like three years ago, I would say Manta. But I have a feeling Jordan, I have a feeling Jordan, I really do, just based on what I see in the marketplace and the insane, insane volume of him. And he's always been forged. Okay. So, you know, they had guys forging him in Chicago for years, but, you know, anytime a player gets to that level, they're going to forge him like crazy. And in Jordan's case, I have. I always like to say, John, that, that, like, I think that Mantle, there's more fake mantles and real mantles, which I still believe by. But Jordan's getting up there and now, you know, we're looking now. I would call most of the forgeries of him, by the way, I just call them kind of amateur forgeries. They're by people who really aren't skilled. But the stuff we've seen now, the fake Upper Deck stuff, they're doing, not all of it, but a lot of it is done very well. And especially on the cards, they are, they have got him down really good. And he's, it's very tough to discern, like Are these actually good or bad? You know what I mean? It's like that close with Jordan. It's, it's. It's to the point where I'm blown away about the amount of fakes on it. Yu-Gi-Oh And we've had, as you know, numerous name scandals, including a big one, even more recently in Indiana as well, which led to a person killing themselves rather than facing the music of Prosecut. I mean, that's how serious this stuff, Yu-Gi-Oh is. And getting. I read an article again, I'm going to acu was here. I heard you say the man will, you know, you. There might be more mantle fakes than, Than actual ones. And he did a lot of stuff after his career, like shows. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Fantasy camps and, and different things like that. I read an article where the FBI. I don't know the exact agent or, you know, but a person from the FBI says they believe that 50 of the autographs that are in circulation are fugazi and not the, the genuine real McCoy. And hearing you say that with the mantle, that's what led me to, to remember reading that. Do you agree with that assessment? Is the number lower, higher? Is it, or is it fairly accurate, in your opinion? I think it's. I think it's in that ballpark, and I think maybe Tim Fitzsimmons said that years ago after Operation Bullpen, which he was involved in, I think he came out with that number, and I think they further reinforce that through the years that I wouldn't be surprised. Okay, so, okay, let's say if we were talking about in the sports realm, you know, solely, I'd say fraud is running about that high. If you jump into entertainment, which includes music, I would say you're getting closer to 65, 70. And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is in the big marketplace out there, ebay, and they are taking great steps to improve the site. And a lot of people see it, they're not sure yet, but ebay is making moves to make it a better marketplace. They know they've had a lot of flack from people through the years, and I used to work with them in their trust and safety department when I was at PSA years ago, going back, you know, almost 20 years. So they, they've actually made some recent steps to improve, and now they're moving forward with even more drastic steps, which I think they're going to implement in the next probably six to eight months. But they, they want to clean that site up and they want to make it a safer environment and autograph People have always complained about it. And you know what? Me as a seller on there too, I look at it and I'm like, man, you know, I see this guy selling Harrison Ford 8 by tens all day long for 80 bucks. Now I'd like to think that those are uneducated buyers. Those are a one time buyer. Someone doesn't know what they're doing there. Maybe someone's looking at like, oh, your photos, 1800. But this one's 80 bucks, same thing. I'm gonna buy that one. They don't know any different. And I think the thing that I always push towards is education. Education and letting the public, you know, and listen, I look at it this way. We are in, you and I are in this sphere of this industry. We're in right here, right? This is us. But we want to get to all these other people too, because there's a lot of other people out here who love collecting. I think truthfully, I think Fanatics Fest has done a good job of that. And they've brought in people that you would normally never see in the collectible sphere. They're in there because, let's be honest, it really wasn't cool. It was never cool for any kind of athlete to say, oh Yu-Gi-Oh I'm gonna go crack some wax. Because they, it wasn't cool to do. Or a celebrity like, oh, you collect baseball cards, what are you, 10 years old? But now it's the thing to do, you know, and isn't that crazy? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And it is nuts, man, because I could, I still look back. The thing is, I've known celebrities that are collected, but they've all done it on the down low. It's not like they're gonna, you know, they're, they're gonna tell somebody on a movie set. He's like, oh Yu-Gi-Oh I'm collecting autographs. What? You know who was one of the biggest celebrity autograph collectors of all time was Johnny. And you know, Johnny would go to card shows. Johnny would go, you know, he used to go to shows in New York, California. But I went to Johnny's house in 2001 with some people and sitting on a table. And Johnny's passed now a long time ago, but it's like a stack of envelopes like this. And I'm like, what are those? He's like, oh, it's the stuff I sent out in the mail. Because he would write the guy's console to get autographs, you know, he, you know, meanwhile we're up in the Hollywood Hills. He has like an $8 million house. And he's writing to like, Larry, Larry Yount, because he played in one game. Robin Yount's brother. That's the type of thing he was doing. So he, he was a completist. He wanted a photo signed of, of every player who ever played baseball, even one game. So he had gone to great lengths to do that and he had collected for years. But then once he found out, he was basically, you know, he's going to die of cancer. He ended up selling it all. Get rid of it. So. But people wouldn't know that stuff because, you know, oh, he didn't really talk about it a lot. It's not like he was talking with his bandmates about going to get autographs or going to a show because he needed money. Irvin, you know, I mean, it was for him. He just kind of kept it on the down low and. But now it's cool to do it. It's very strange. Yu-Gi-Oh Did done a 180 and, and that's crazy right here. He's a celebrity himself and, and he's like, you said, he's doing the TTM right through the mail. He's running through the mail. I mean, I'm like, I'm scratching my head. I'm like, wait a minute. You're the biggest punk rock band of all time, one of the most influential punk rock bands ever, period. You can't debate it. It is factual. And you're writing to a guy who played one game. I. I'm okay. Yu-Gi-Oh Cool mind blown. Yu-Gi-Oh So you, you're not. You don't think that number is far off. You think it's fairly even and maybe worse today would like. I just think the technology, right, has gotten better with time as well. Well, with their, you know, the thing. The. The thing. Okay, so you mentioned auto pen writer. Okay. But what they're doing too is like, I see it like crazy. The fake certs that are getting knocked off of Beckett, psa, JSA Fanatics. Steiner, you can keep going on tristar. They've all gotten hit. But the Beckett ones I've seen on, you know, a lot of photos and then the PSA ones, what they do is that, you know, just to give an example. So back in 2002, I was out in New Jersey. I got asked to go out there when I was with PSA. They have 15,000 Kobe Bryant autographs to certify this company did. So what they had done is bought all those in the scoreboard bankruptcy sale. And they had to get them all Certified so we went out there as a first time, actually a psa we ever did a small cert card and a sticker that matched. That was the first time. And we did the Kobe's, but there was no photos of them. So the website didn't have backup. You know, it just said Kobe Bryant signed jersey. So now what they do is they go in there, they find those numbers, or they just know them because they could find them on ebay, real ones. And then they reproduce the number, the sticker, they fake the autograph and put it out there. And I'm, I've tried my best to educate people about that stuff non stop. Like I have. I have, you know, my YouTube channel. I've got a whole video, a whole video I did about the whole thing because I'm quite truthfully Certified you know, And I want people to know what to look for. Here's what you look for with Kobe Bryant. Look for this on these jerseys. If you're getting this, it's no good. So be very careful. Yu-Gi-Oh One. That's one thing I love about you too, Steve. I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you. I'm saying it because it's how I really feel. It's accurate. There's, like you said, the education, right? Like this is your business, but you also want people to. You're. You're teaching them and you're hoping they learn so that they don't get burned or go down a Pratt hole, you know, a pratfall that, that can cost them money and then they don't actually have what they, they think they have. It's bad for a business one-of-one isn't it? I mean, it's bad. I mean, listen, we don't want to scare people away, right? We want people to come in and spend money and enjoy it and collect and not be scared away by buying bad autographs or getting burned on Kobe or Jordan. You know, we don't want that. So let's try and educate them as much as possible and get the good info out there so they could actually see it for themselves. I mean, Kobe's a great example of that. You know, those are a great example. The Jordan stuff, the fake Beckett search, the fake PSA search, the fake JSA certs that are out there. You know, I, I feel like I've been in the, the epicenter of all these big things that have happened. You know, the forgery guys, the guys who have been busted. I just recently filmed for a documentary about Cliff, Cliff Panovich, who was in Ohio, Operation Stolen Base. And I sat down with the crew this past week in Las Vegas or just recently, basically. And we just talked about it for. Seemed like forever. But they're putting together a documentary about him, and he is so cocky and arrogant. He said that he knows that he could come back and do it again and no one would even know. And I'm like, here's the thing. People would know. His forgeries were really bad one-of-one They were hideous. But at the same time, you can't flood the marketplace with that stuff, that volume of bad stuff, without it getting Beckett off by people on ebay or people calling it out on Facebook. He would get called out, and it would be over with. So, you know, I. I mean, it's been enjoyable, though, to educate. I keep doing it. I do videos all the time about, you know, whether it's Roberto Clemente or Muhammad Ali or James Hetfield or Harrison Ford or Heath Ledger. I want to educate people on what to look for and what to stay away from. And that's what I. You know, so I've been trying to do for a long time. Now I have more of a voice to do it. Before, it worked for PSA and Beckett. You know, they wanted to control more of that stuff, but now I could get out there and do it on my own, and I'm. I'm enjoying it. It's good to educate. Yu-Gi-Oh Yep. And you're the CEO, and so look. Or, you know, I'm sure your wife's on the board of directors. No, she's the CEO. My wife is a CEO. I'm. I. I take a backseat. There's only two of us. That's it. Grad Collection has two people. That's it. Just my wife and myself. As long as they're both. They're on the same page, you. You kind of do what you. You really want to do and what you're passionate for. Sure. About that. Was Steve Grant. Happy to have him on for. Like I said in the intro for the first time, he will be back for part two next Friday as well. So part one and part two. And, you know, I always appreciate guests when they say, like, hey, you know, you can ask me anything you want. And Steve's one of those type of guys, so we really appreciate his time and making some time for us here. Check back in next week for the conclusion of our great conversation, if I may be so bold. All right, some closing thoughts and notes, and we're going to wrap up this week's episode. Bubba Wallace here from 2311 Racing. You know what's slower than a pace car waiting at the car wash? That's when I fire up Chumba Casino. It turns those slow minutes into fast fun. With new games every week, you'll never get bored. Next time you're stuck in the slow lane, speed up with Chumba. Play now@chumbacasino.com let's Chumba sponsored by Chumba Casino no purchase necessary. VGW Group voidware prohibited by law 21 terms and conditions apply. Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. 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