Iowa Dave Schwartz "Cutting Back Content" E401

Here's golf legend John Daly. Hell Yu-Gi-Oh These wins are piling up faster than my divorces. I only spent on Moto America's social casino. You know, I've one-of-one a couple of majors and on Moto, I've one-of-one majors, grads and epic jackpots on their classic Vegas slots with huge, huge bonus rounds. Motocasino adds new games and awards. Players free coins every single day. Grip it and spend it on MotoCasino. Download the Moto Casino app today. Moto Casino is a social casino point where prohibited. No purchase necessary. Visit Moto Us for more details. When she said I don't dance now I make money moves, that was a mission statement for a whole new generation. Respect. But that's not the Mount Rushmore. Listen. Cash rules everything around me. When that line Tribute it changed the whole hustle. The greatest tracks are never finished. They're just debated forever. Introducing the Sprite living track list. 50 tracks that shape the culture from six decades of hip hop. Scan the QR code on a Sprite or Sprite zero Sugar to see the full breakdown. Obey your thirst, Sprite. Sports Car Nation the hobby is the people. Weekly news and interviews. It's your number one source. Sports Car Nation the hobby is the people. Sports Car Nation what is up everybody? Welcome to episode 401 of Sports Card Nation. We celebrated our 400th episode last week with a giveaway and we gave. We gave out a contest word on that episode which you had to get to me in either PM DM or email fashion. I'm gonna give it another week before we actually draw the randomized for the six prizes. The winners, you know, not everyone. I get it. Not everyone listens to the episode on release day. We do have some entries for sure, but I want to give everyone ample time. I don't want anyone to say hey, you know you did it too fast, right? You know I'm busy. I don't listen to the episode on day one. So I'm gonna give it probably to this fry to this coming Friday for everyone to get the entries in. If you're not in, how do you get in? Listen, episode 400. Somewhere in the episode I will give you a hint. It's not at the beginning. There will be a contest word. Get that contest word to us and you are entered. Everyone entered will be put on the randomizer list for one of six prizes. I don't want anyone winning more than once. So once you there'll be six different winners and we'll again we'll do that in About a week. Let's talk about this episode. My guest on this show, Dave Schwartz from the Shallow End, he's kind of sunsetted that podcast, but he's doing other content as well. He's not riding off into the sunset, but great show for one thing I appreciated about that show was for really the everyday collector and wanted to talk to him about, you know, the thought process when he knew, you know, as a fellow podcaster, you know, what was the toughest thing about podcasting, what was the most fun and that sort of thing. So I Beckett his brain to, you know, get some behind the scenes or some insights about him and the show he's been on. He's an alumnus of the show he's been on prior, but with that happening recently, I wanted to get him on, so. So he's our guest this week and next week as we do always continue to do double episodes to keep the, you know, time allotment more consumable. Before we get the show started, I want to thank all our great sponsors, some that contributed to the giveaway, Yu-Gi-Oh that was ongoing sgc, Iron Sports Cards, Sports Collectors Digest, Hobby Hotline, Upper Deck Card Ladder, and ctca, the Certified Trading Card Association. So with all that being said, let's kick this thing off. 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 announc less than seven hours of Red Zone football. But as you watch Red Zone, just save some time. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday to check out John and Sports Card Nation. Let's have a great season, people. Here's golf legend John Daly. Hell, Yu-Gi-Oh These wins are piling up faster than my divorces. I only spent on Moto, America's social casino. You know, I've one-of-one a couple of majors and on Moto, I've one-of-one majors, grands and epic jackpots on their classic Vegas slots with huge, huge bonus rounds. Motocasino adds new games and awards. Players free coins every single day. Grip it and spend it on Motocasino. Download the Motocasino app today. Moto Casino is the social casino board. We're prohibited. No purchase necessary. Visit Moto Us for more details. America's social casino Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail. Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Real happy to have the next gentleman on his Sports Card Nation guest line. It's not his first time. He is a returning guest and he's a podcaster and content creator in his own right. And I'm happy to call him also a friend and happy to have him back on. Dave Schwartz, welcome back. Hey John, it's great to be here. Great to be back. When I first got back into cards, you were one of the first people who I found and you helped kind of bring me back to life in this hobby. So I love talking with you. It's great to be here. Well, I, I appreciate that and coming from you, even, even all the more so you're not out of podcasting per se, per se. But you, you know, you had a great show, the Shallow End, which I know you just sunsetted three year run or almost three years, the 23 to 26 here. And one thing I loved about the show and your content was it was forever for everybody, the everyday collector. And it's something I try to do, frankly, and I'm being very honest here, I think you do even do a better job than I do because sometimes I'll have a guest that's from the corporate world and, and not that there's anything wrong with that, but you really made content that everyone could relate to and made it seem seemless. And so my hat's off, off to you there. When, when you started the Shallow End, was that something you had in mind right from jump Street? It was. In fact, that's even the story behind the name. So when I got going, I was asked if I wanted to do a podcast. And this was by the artist formerly known as the sports car therapist Rob G. And he said, would you want to be on my network? He asked me, would you want to do a show? And immediately I came back with no. And the reason why is I had no immediate ideas. I'd done a podcast before in a different market. It was like about books, right. And don't like the sound of my own voice. But then as I thought about it and took about a week, I got back to him, I said, actually Yu-Gi-Oh let's give it a shot. He says, what do you want to be about? I came back immediately. The shallow end. Let's do a podcast about the rest of us, which is also the most of us, I think. You know, the, the seven figure sales are allegedly interesting, but really I think the ones I'll relate to and want to talk about are just the fun pickups. I love when I'm on Instagram or a social or somewhere and someone sends me a pic of hey, look what I Beckett up. And you know, it's for their PC and it costs them $12 like that is. That's almost more exciting than, you know, first round draft Beckett jour, you know, Prizm Black, Finite Vinyl, one of one gold. We get it right, but it's when somebody is working towards something and the cost of the card matters so much less than just being able to fit that into what they're trying to build. Yu-Gi-Oh no doubt. And you know, that upper echelon, if you will, the hobby, you know, it does make headlines, but when you really, you know, bear it out, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but it's really like 2% of the overall hobby. Right. The other 98 are guys like us that are, are, you know, we collect what we, we love and like, or, or something that's nostalgic or brings back memories to maybe our younger days if, if you will. And not that they don't, you know, that, that 2% isn't the same but you know, the majority is, is playing with, with lesser discretionary income, if you will. Maybe that's the, the polite way to, to say it. And so, and I, I knew that, you know, but like you said with the name of the show itself to, to kind of drive that, that, you know, you know, when you, when you decided to, you know, kind of sunset the show and you do another show called Overthinking Baseball Cards. So it's not like you're riding off into the sunset and we'll never see you again. Which, which, that's a, that's a good thing. But when you decided sort of to put, you know, the shallow end, the bed, how much did you wrestle with that? Or was it actually easier than, than people may think? No, that's a really good question. I, I had almost ended it about six months earlier. I almost ended it at the end of 25. I was just tired of it. I was tired of coming up with content. Work was really, really busy and for the first time it felt like something I had to do instead of something that I wanted to do, and had a conversation behind the scenes with a few people about it, and they said, take a break. Don't quit. And I did. I took three or four weeks off and then came back and running. I was just reinvigorated. But then it started to hit me again, you know, in the spring, like, okay, I think I've taken this as about as far as I can take it. Not, you know, not, you know, having a podcast, but that podcast in particular. And then I looked at it, realized, oh, the math. That I was coming up on 200 episodes, and I thought I was maybe 12 away, and I thought that'd be a really nice round number to say that the show lasts 200 episodes. And so I mapped it out and saw, you know, about when that would end. And I think it was mid to late May, and I didn't want it to interfere with the national too much because it would get lost. And that timing just seemed perfect. And so I said, all right, I'm gonna do that. But I didn't tell anybody until I was five weeks out. And then I put out that show saying, you know, five more, and then I'm done. And, no, no regrets. You know, it's only been six weeks, seven weeks since I ended it, but I. I'm glad that I did. I do do the overthinking baseball card show with Jason, who's at Contrarian Cards, and that's about once a month, which is a nice pace. And this past week or two, I also started one called Sports Cards, the Cardcast with Pat, who is insta account haver. And one thing I like about it is it's nice to have someone to chat with who we have, like, interests and, like, philosophies and, like, trains of thought. But also, we don't need to do it all that often. You know, maybe once a week. I'm sorry, once a month? Once every few weeks or so. Because this isn't. Isn't my job. I have a job, and I have a long commute and kids and everything else. And so this way, I don't resent it so much. Plus, I get to scratch another itch. So, you know, Jason and I get to go really deep into conversations on overthinking baseball cards, and Pat and I get to have a little fun on sports cards, the Cardcast. And it's just a little bit different. And it's different and it's new, and it feels exciting to me, and it's a little bit less Frequent. So every time feels fresh and fun. Yu-Gi-Oh that's good to hear. Like, that you're in a good place. Right. And when I first even doing this podcast, Dave, and I've talked about this on this podcast before, and I'll make this story a lot shorter. When I was in the episodes in the numbers in the 50s and 60s, I really was getting sort of time consumed by it. And again, I told the story before, so I apologize for those that have heard it. But I came, you know, I'm upstairs. This is where I do the recording. This is all my cards are around me. And I came down one night and my wife said, hi, my name is Sharon. What's your name? And it was her polite way of saying, like, man, you are upstairs a lot. You know, what's going on. And it, you know, sometimes you need something like that to hit. You don't even realize that, right? You don't even realize it until someone. It's almost. I hate to use this analogy, but it's almost like intervention, right? Where you don't know there's an issue until someone else says, hey, you know, like, what are you doing? What's going on? Why are you doing it? And I was just very consumed by it and, and just into it and just a lot of time, and it was taking me away from other things. And, you know, that. That line from my wife really opened my eyes to, hey, how I don't want. I know I enjoy it. Obviously, I'm spending all this time on it, right? You got. You got to enjoy it if you're doing. Doing that, spending that much time on it. But how can I still do it? Maybe you know, be. Be more efficient at it with time. And, And. And there were some things that I didn't know. I was sort of early. I'm still learning, Dave, you know, but there was things I didn't know at that time that I know now that I. I did a little research. How do I edit and do it fast and all those things, and, you know, again, I'll make the story shorter. And I started implementing some of those things and really got back to where, you know, baseline, where I should have been. And I think I'm better for. Obviously my family part of my life is. Is better for. But I also, because I don't spend the same amount of time like that. I think I appreciate it more too. That's. You know, burnout can. Is a term that can be applied to anything. A job, a family, podcast, whatever. Burn. Playing sports or certain sport. You can get burnout can apply to any of those things. And I think had I continued down that road, I was headed in that direction. And sometimes it takes someone else to say, hey, like what's going on? And to kind of like turn the light on for you. That's exactly what happened. And I'm glad, you know that. I'm glad she, my wife, had said something. And you know, so here we are, you know, almost at 400 episodes, which is, which is nuts to me as well. Like, like you probably when you started, I had no idea how long it was going to last. How long, you know, when we even started, we didn't even have guests. It was just me, which is now with the other show I do Hobby Quick Kids has become where it's just, just me. So, you know, I get it. I, that hits home to me as well. And you know, so I also, when I started this show, I wasn't in teaching like I am now, Dave, and I had a job that was like 6am to 6pm literally. I'm not even like people in bed. That's my hours. And it was just killing me and I needed a career. And then doing like the podcast on top of that, that's where some of the commentary from my wife came. Now I have a, you know, now I'm more like 8 to 3 o' clock and just better off for anything else. The other thing I wanted to ask you, not enough about me, but did, did podcasting change how you collected? Did it, did it influence how you collected or, or not necessarily. No, I think I would have evolved one-of-one But what it did change is my overall experience in the hobby and that allowed me to, to meet some people, which was really important. When I, when my collecting hiatus was over, I used to say I was out of the hobby. But then Mike Moynihan always says, as long as you have cards, you're never out of the hobby. You just take a long hiatus. So when my, you know, decades long hiatus was over and I came back at first I just learned about it through podcasts and how kind of what I was doing, what the different sets were and how the business was run now and what's this grading thing? And then from there I moved into Twitter. Actually I wasn't even on Instagram yet. And I started selling over and buying and selling over Twitter for a while, low end type stuff. And that place turned into a cesspool pretty quick. And so I just deleted my account and moved on from it. And this is when it was still Twitter and then, But I felt really lonely. And there's something that happens with, with men as they get older in that they tend to isolate a lot. They tend to kind of just go into the shell and, and become loners. And I felt that happening a little bit. And so I joined Instagram and tried to meet some people, and it was great. And chatted with some of their folks here and there. And then when the podcast opportunity came, I thought, at first I thought, no, but then I thought, maybe this is another way to reach out and make some connections. The cards were always there, and we're always evolving and what we like and how we do it. You know, sometimes we evolve fast and sometimes we, you know, it's a long time to evolve. But what I appreciate most about the, the Shallow End podcast while it was going, is because of that, now I've got people who I know and, and friends who, whether the podcast is going or not, that we have this connections now. And it just, I feel a little bit more part of the world in a way, and I think I can thank podcasting for that. Yu-Gi-Oh I, I, I, you know, concur 100. Right. It's funny because, you know, it's, it's funny, you know, the Nationals coming up, and it never fails. And I'm always humbled by it, right? Someone, I'm just walking around trying to buy some cards and, and see friends that I know. But it always, someone will, like, tap me on the shoulder and say, hey, John, like, you don't know me. Love the show. Just wanted to shake your hand. And like, I'm always amazed by that. Like, I had one guy say, like, you're a celebrity. I'm like, I'm not. I've said this on the show, like, until I go to my local supermarket and I'm grocery shopping and someone says, oh, my God, it's you. Which doesn't happen. That's my point. You know, I'm not a celebrity, but it always is, is humbling. I'm flattered by it. I'm honored by it. But it's, I always tell when someone says that to me, I'm like, I put my pants on one leg at a time, man. We're just in the, we're in the same fraternity of, of card collecting. That's, that's who we are. And that's, that's, I'm good with that. But I, you know, I'm always appreciative of people who, you know, are glad to meet me. Right. Beats the alternative. The other side of that coin and. But I, you know, that was never like, really a goal of mine. I just wanted to share my experiences, my hobby, ask questions, and also maybe be informative at the same time. Right. I always say as long as you're in the hobby, you should. You're probably learning something every day, especially now in today's hobby, where it changes so quickly and there's something new around the corner, it seems like every week. So I'm always learning and I'm just really, you know, appreciative of, like you said, where the podcast has. Has went and what it's, you know, what has happened because of it. Having that, that fraternity of friends and, and that's gotten bigger over the course of eight years, obviously. And including yourself, right, and getting to know you and, and talking with you at the show and. And that sort of thing, or not at the show like we are now, or even off. Off air, if you will. And, you know, you can't put a price on stuff like that. Again, you're doing, you know, you're still doing content. I'm gonna put you a little bit on the spot. Do you think we'll. Could you bring the shallow end back at some point? Maybe, you know, after. After a hiatus, if you will. Maybe you'll say, hey, I one-of-one I one-of-one do this again, do this podcast again. I could. It would not be a weekly show anymore. Again, I don't want to have the. The obligation. So so much of what you do when you put out content is you want to be consistent, right? You know that you want to be there. You don't want to have people come to enjoy your show and give you their time, which is the most precious thing, right? You can make more money, you can work out and get healthier, but you can't make more time. So when they are giving you their time, you want to be there, but at the same time, I would probably want to do it maybe, you know, I'd say, hey, the second Thursday of every month, or something along those lines. If I did it on my. In my last episode, I referenced. I'm not saying I'm anywhere near her level, but let's talk about Oprah, right? So Oprah had her show for 15, 20 years, however long it was, and then she ended it. Cut you off, Dave. I do, I do like you more than Oprah. Not today. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. That. Thank you. But then, but then she ended her show, but then all of a sudden, randomly, six months later, there was like, the Oprah special where she did an interview with someone and she just felt like she wanted to do it again. And so what I, what I've thought about is if the shallow end does come back, it wouldn't be called the shallow end, it would be called like the shallow end interviews or something, right? Where just once a month I reach out to someone and hope they want to talk to me because they're interesting and then I can bring their, their perspective to the overall hobby. But as of right now, I've got no, no intention of bringing it back as a weekly show anytime soon or maybe ever. I had to ask and I'm sort of politicking for like, hey, just keep that in your back Beckett if, if you ever want to, you know, bring it back. But you know, that's true, you can bring it back like you said, even in a different form if that's the case. Case, right. It's still you right at the helm and behind the mic if that's what you use to do. You are listening to the Sports Card Nation podcast. We'll be right back after this break. When you're dealing with sports cards, guessing isn't a strategy. A strategy requires relying on accurate data that you can trust. That's why the hobby uses Card Ladder. Card Ladder provides hundreds of millions of historical prices going back over 20 years, plus real time tracking of comps from across the hobby as they happen. We track sales from every major platform while working together with marketplaces and grading companies to provide the most reliable data in the industry. Card Ladder's research team carefully vets millions of transactions. We provide dozens of category indexes and thousands of player indexes to help you get a big picture view of the market. 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Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. We are back. I gotta ask you this because I want to sort of compare notes. What? And it doesn't mean yet you don't enjoy, but what was like, your least favorite thing about doing the podcast? And I'll even add mine after I hear it might even be the same for all we. I don't know. For me, for me, it was post production. So the way that I would. The way that I would do it is I, I. Except for when I did the essays, I wrote those out. But for the most part, I would script my intro, 30 seconds to say what the show was about, and then I would just talk with some notes. I'd have my notes and I would just kind of go. But then when it was over, I would have to go back and listen to it so I could edit it and put everything together, like the theme song and the transition sounds. But then I had to do it a third time in which I would listen to it in my car on the way to or from work to make sure it all sounded good. So essentially I felt like I was doing it three times and I was so tired of it by the end, I. I generally don't like the sound of my voice. It's fine. I've gotten past, like, whatever, I deal with it. But to hear the same episode with your same voice three times, it was just too much. But I didn't want to scale back because then the level of quality might go down, right? So step one was recorded, step two was edit it. And step three was make sure it's all there. And there was two times, I think, where I didn't do that because I was just in a hurry. One time turned out fine. The other time I uploaded the wrong file. And so it was, it was an outtake. Excuse me? It was an outtake where I had to stop and restart. But you hear me pausing, you hear me clearing my throat, you hear me swearing, I'm like, oh, like that. And I have to start over. And that went up for about 45 minutes until I Hit play. The morning it came out to listen to it, I thought, what did I. Oh, God. You know, And I went back and I jumped onto the backend system and I pulled it down and I put up the correct one. But the one time, you know, one of the few times I didn't do it, that's what happens. And that's why I was so. I was so dedicated to the back end as much as I was to the front end. And so that was by far my least favorite part. I. I love. I'm so appreciative of you asking me here because it's so much fun to talk, but I also like being a guest on someone's show because when I'm off, I'm done, right? I can just go off and do something else. I don't have to think about the uploading, the editing, the sounds, sound quality, all that stuff. And so I just, I don't, I don't miss that. That's where. That's what took the most time. In fact, it's. So that's where I got most of my time back. You stole my answer. But I think for obvious reasons, it's both of our answers. And to make you feel better, Dave, I've done stuff like that too. Where. Probably more than once. But someone said, hey, man, you ran like there was an ad that ran twice or something happened where, like it. It. Something was. Shouldn't have been in that episode. Like you said, it didn't flow. It was. I put. I uploaded the wrong file, much like you said, and it actually went to air. Like I didn't patch auto myself. I got it. Same thing. It was out. It was out there. I'm not gonna lie about it. It was out there for the masses to intake. I gotta. And frankly, if no one would have said anything, I might have caught it when I listened to it. But I don't always listen to it the same day I release it, necessarily so. But someone messaged me probably two to three hours, like early in the morning after I released it, like, John, did you know this? Like, I don't. You do, obviously, or you wouldn't have. And I pulled like you, like you said that brought back memories. I actually took it down that way no one had to hear the mistake, fix the episode and re upload it. I think I even put like in my intro, like, hey, sorry that this is coming out. Like for those that didn't even hear the. The initial episode, sorry this has come out late. I'm very transparent, so I don't want to act like, hey, it didn't happen. You know, like, it was out there. Like, my bad. I fixed it. That's why this, this part is a little bit later for those who are looking for it earlier and didn't see it or, you know, that gap when I took the old. The first file down and then fixed it and Whatnot. You know, I've had people say that's one of the things they like, is I'm, I try to be transparent and honest and genuine and like, hey, we're human, right? We. We make mistakes, right? That's the beauty of, of being a human. And. But like you said, Dave, you, you took the words right out of my mouth, right? The post, like, this stuff is fun. Me talking to you and whoever the guest is on, on whatever particular episode, that's always a fun part. But it's that post production and editing and it takes me less time now because some of those tools I've implemented. But it's still, you know, truth be told, like you just said, it's my least favorite part as well. And it's funny. I'm sure you got. You still get them? I still get them. You know, I get an email, hey, we can do all the editing and post production for your podcast. You know, obviously it's not for free. And like, who do you think I am, Joe Rogan? Like, you know, to, you know, we're not doing that. The show for, for financial gain. There is some, you know, again, being transparent. I do have sponsors and Whatnot, but I can't pay, like, someone to do all the post production and editing. I'm not at that level. That's like a Joe Rogan to me. That's like a Joe Rogan level. So, So I. But I always get a kick out of when, when, you know, sometimes I just delete them. Other times, if I'm in a playful sort of mood, I'll just play along and like, hey, what does this entail? And what, and what does, you know, what does this cost? And the amount, like 100, you know, $200 an episode. I'm like, what? Who do you think I am? You know, so. But it's always, it's always funny. And, you know, I still get those, you know, at least once a week, if not, if not more. But I wish someone would do it for free. I'm all, I'm all about that. But, you know, even then it's funny after saying that, I don't know if I'd even do that, right? Because, like, you got to trust somebody that they're going to do what you would want to do, right? And so doing it yourself, right, you put those personal touches on there. But at the same time, you know, I wish I was like, you know, and Bewitched, where I could just wiggle my nose and it would just all be, all be done. No such, no such luck, though. That was just a, a TV show. But I get it and, right. And I, I, I. Adventure. I guess like, the most fun is, like I just said, talking to folks or, or sharing your thoughts and that sort. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh that's, that's the whole point of this, right? You know, it's like as a kid collecting, you'd, you'd go, you'd ride your bike to the 711 or whatever your, your store was, wherever you were, and you buy a few packs for cheap. You buy a Slurpee or soda or something, and you go back and you'd all just open up your cards and talk about them and, and just trade, you know, trade each other or just, or get jealous because someone else happened to pull, you know, an Ozzy Smith or Don Mattingly or something like that, and then we would trade and it was fun. And that's, that's kind of what we've got to do now because as adults, we have different responsibilities and, and a lot of our physical friends, you know, by that I mean, like people who are, you know, in our neighborhood, but they don't collect. Right. And so the way to talk about cards is this. And I think talking about cards is so much fun, man. I like it, it's part of, it's part of the collecting. Like, to me, the collecting part is finding what you like, acquiring what you like, building a collection that you like, but then talking about it as well with your, with your buddies. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't change that for the world. Yu-Gi-Oh no doubt. I always, that's why I always say, right, we're in the, you know, we might all go to, like, different colleges per se, with different ways we collect, but we're all in the same fraternity at the end. You know, I wanted to get your take on this too. You know, I know a lot of people like to appoint themselves like hobby watchdogs or gatekeepers. The, the more polite term is watchdog, a derogatory one. And I've always said, Dave, like, we're all, we're all hobby watchdogs. We should all be helping each other out. I don't think you, you need to self appoint yourself that or I'm, I'm this and you're not. Right? We all should be looking out for everyone's well being in the hobby, right? Because I like people in the hobby. I don't want someone to have a bad experience, get burnt or be unhappy about something and, and leave. Right? And when someone new comes in the hobby, I want them to stay for the long haul, much like I did, you know, starting in 1979. So I always say, like, we're all hobby watchdog. We don't need to put a title on it. You don't need to like, appoint yourself that. I, you know, and sometimes it would bother me when someone would say, I'm the hobby Watchdog. And, you know, it always sort of. I'm like, we alt art And I don't even, like, have to say it, but we all should, like, be thinking like, hey, we all need to look out for one another. If I can tell you something, Dave, that's going to help you or prevent you from going down a. A road that maybe doesn't end well, like, why wouldn't I share that info or try to help you out? I don't need to put a title on that. It's just information. Was. Was that something you're cognizant or am I just being nitpicky, which I, I can be sometimes. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't. That was never really my intention, but I, I like the way that you put it from the perspective that you're coming and that whether we want to or not, we're all sort of a hobby watchdog as long as our intentions are good. But that's never how I, I approached it. What I want to do is I, I approached it from one, putting out the kind of content that I would want to listen to, and the second one was sort of, not sort of, but actually being there as a collector who has a show. So when the noise got to be too much, you could always retreat to my show to get back to your roots of what collecting is. Most of my 200 episodes, probably 196 of them, you could listen to now, and you wouldn't know if it came out three years ago or today, because they were essentially, for the most part, evergreen. So I don't. I would say, no, I was not a watchdog. I was more like a, like a, like a safe haven of places where people could return. I was like the old, the old one-of-one with the fireplace, you know, come in and put up your feet and have someone can get you some soup and you can warm up and remember, like, oh, okay, this is what, this is all I needed right here. I didn't need all the invest in this. Or here's the scandal of the day. And oh my gosh, can you believe it? SGC was sold. And now where's Peter? And now they shrunk and now they got spot. Oh, God, who cares? I, I just want to get back to the cards. And so I just tried to be that warm chair with the fireplace next to it. Well, listen, coming. I, I'll tell you this. If someone will listen to your show, you did a, you nailed it. You did a great job. And, and you know, when, when, when I knew, when I realized, like, hey, you're, you're kind of ending that I was like, no, you know, like, I, I really didn't want to, you know, but, but doing this. But at the same time, Dave, here's. I'll give you. Doing this, I get. I also understood it too, because from my own thoughts and internal process, I got it. So I didn't want to be, you know, I know I reached out to you, but I didn't want to, from a selfish point of view, say, oh, you can't do this, or because I'm like, I wanted you to know I enjoyed your content. I'm, I'm sad, but I also didn't, you know, I think it's a little like, don't do it. Like you, you don't know what someone's dealing with, right? Behind scenes. Maybe it's something you didn't even share. Maybe it's God forbid, but, like something you just didn't want to share. And then this is just part of that process. So I, I, I'll never, I never really do that, but you know what I mean? But I, I get it. And, and I know we talked about it and then I wanted you to, you know, I would have you on one-of-one but it's not just because you ended that, that show, but, you know, to talk about it. And, and because we kind of share, you know, obviously we both know what, you know, this entails and those, sometimes those internal battles you have with yourself, right. We all have them. I don't care who you are, right? You, me, Jeremy Lee, whoever it is, right. It's, it can be time consuming and it's a commitment, right? Especially if you're doing it like this show, which is every week. So I fully get it. You know, when you look at the hob, the current state of the hobby, you know, we got Fanatics taking Three fourths of the licensing. You know, we've heard Reuben say, and I know you don't particularly. This isn't particularly your language. You're a smart guy. So I wanted to pick your brain here, right? And you got your finger on the pulse enough where you can answer that. You know, we see Fanatics, you know, with most of the licensing now, with the exception of hockey, of the four major sports, we see what's happening in the grading space with delays and lower pricing levels sort of being positive and. Or eliminated. When. And we. Michael Rubin, hey, we want a 10x the hobby. When you he. When you see all this, you hear like, what's your view on. Like, even though it may not affect you by the way you collect, what are your feelings to, you know, where the hobby is? It's a good question. You know, I never talked about it on my show, but I always paid attention to know what's going on. And you know, I have opinions and thoughts and I think what I think about most now is I just, I hope that collect the. The hope collectors are able to get what they want and get what they need and are able to focus on what they want to focus on. The question that burns in my mind often is what is. What is the hobby now? Is the hobby collecting cards or is there a separate hobby and which. The hobby is investing and making returns on cards as quickly as you can. And sports cards just happen to be the vehicle for that. And it could be stamps and it could be watches or shoes or furniture or anything else. How will someone getting into the hobby today, a kid, look back at it in the year 2070. Will they look back at their hobby as I think a lot of them will, we're like, oh, I could collect my favorite players like, you know, like Trevor Lawrence or, or, or whoever, you know, any, any other athlete playing out like Jordan Walker, or will it be. It's like, oh, that was a great summer. Back in 26, I made 14K, you know. So like, really, what is the hobby now? I don't think that the hobby is dying. I just think that there are two hobbies occupying the same space, and one hobby is card collecting, and the other one is making money with cards. And it's really interesting trying to watch those two work in. In tandem with each other. It's like the Ghostbusters don't cross the streams, but they've been cross. And, and it affects collectors in that it jacks up prices on them, but also affects investors because who controls some of the card you Know, it's so, but we have to learn to all swim in the same see together. So I don't mind all the business stuff. I, I didn't, I don't know who owned tops before Fanatics. I just thought there was some Spectra up in the air that owned it. I don't, I have no idea. And now we know that it's Mike Mahan and Reuben above him, and they're doing fine. I, I, they have too many parallels and they probably over print, but that's just my, my preference in terms of the grading. You know, I know they changed it about a year and a half ago. Mayhem. Not Mayhem. One of them. No, that's, that's, that's the wrong group. The president of psa. Not, not collectors, not Nat, but the PSA person, Nat Turner. Yu-Gi-Oh but the person below the person, the PSA specifically. I know who you're talking about. His name is, it's, it's, I can't think of it, but I know. Right, right. He's, he's Mantle Maze on Instagram. I know that. Maze Mantle on Instagram. And, and you know, Nat was saying, oh, no, our grade didn't change. We're just adhering to our standards more. And two seconds later, Ryan Hosh. Ryan Ho. Right. And an hour and a half later, proper credit, like, rather than just say, that guy. Yu-Gi-Oh absolutely. Great, thanks. Right, right, so Nat Turner goes, our standards haven't changed. We're just enforcing them better. And Ryan Hodge comes and goes, here's how our standards have changed. And like, wait, what's even going on here? But I'm all for a 10, being really hard to get, and should be really, really, really hard to get. What's jamming everything up, though, is, is like, everyone else knows it's TCG and it's Pokemon and it's not sports cards at all. And from what I've read and looked at myself, the number of sports cards that are graded now are identical to the number that are being graded a year ago. But the number of cards overall have gone up so much that it has got to come from somewhere. And so it's, you know, it's tcg, and that's just sort of is what it is. I don't, I don't. I've heard some people say they should separate it out and have a separate company or a separate area for TCG to be graded, but where does that stop? Because if you do that, then the football collectors are going to say, well, how about we separate baseball? Because there's too much of that. And then basketball will say, well, let's put football because there's too much of that. Then hockey will say, now there's too much of that. So it is what it is. They're all trading cards. Some people like Pokemon, which is great. Some like tcg, some like Magic the Gathering. Some like hockey, some like football, some like baseball. There's just a lot going on right now and the infrastructure hasn't caught up yet. They, the hobby has been grown, but the hobby industrial complex did not grow with it and now we're dealing with the backlog. Yu-Gi-Oh no, I agree. That's a, that's a good way of putting it, right? Is like the hobby's grown, but like you said, the internal functions have had a hard time keeping up with that growth. And I, I also like, you know, the sea analogy, right. It's a big C, right? You can, you can be in your own section if you will. You're, you know, there's like, we know in, in real life, right? There's all different seas. The Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Mediterranean, black, right. So whatever your C is, right, you can be in there with folks that are of similar ilk and, and ways they collect. And that's, I guess at the end of the day that's the beauty of the hobby. That concludes part one of my conversation with Dave Schwartz from the shallow end. And Dave's just a great down to earth guy and you know, I, I gravitate towards folks like that because I, I try to be like that or I feel like I'm like that. So come back next week for, for part two. And again, Dave is still producing content. He just sunsetted the shallow end. 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