52 Mantle Pulled, Stolen Card Registry, Franchise LCS, Skipping a NSCC? E390

Hey everybody. Lady luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now all summer long I'm going to be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com. get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Foreign. Good morning, Hobby Verse. It must be Saturday because it's another episode of Hobby Hotline. I believe this is 390. I'm joined by two people I consider good friends and glad that's the case. Orlando collector's dream and Tony D, uh, you know, representing Philly, which I'll be going to in a few weeks, uh, myself. I want to start off unfortunately with some somber news. Both of these gentlemen, uh, were gracious enough, uh, to jump on almost last minute. Last day or two we had, you know, unfortunately two deaths with Hobby Hotline members with, you know, Samuel Evans lost a family member this week and couldn't come on. And then just yesterday Victor Roman, who was supposed to be on his mother in law passed away. So we send our thoughts and condolences to the Evans and Roman family, uh, during this difficult time. I, I know probably everyone else would echo that sentiment. Always stinks, but unfortunately part of life as, as well. So. But Victor and Orlando jumping in. I much appreciate it guys. Thank you for, for doing us a solid. All right, so let's get it. We got some great topics, but let's get into some hellos. Uh, here, uh, this morning, uh, there's Scott. Uh, good morning from sunny Minnesota. Not sunny in New York, guys. So I wish I, I wish I could say the same. Mad city brew. Upstate sports cards in Albany, New York. I'm gonna guess cloudy Albany, New York as well. Western Colorado, small, small act town. Uh, Jim at the bank. He's driving across alligator alley. So fellow Floridian, Orlando foul fly ball. Uh, good morning, sir. Confluence Sports Cards. Good morning. He's at your mom's house. So you might want to call your mom and check on her. So yank me card. Steve A funny name. Howdy. From sunny Tucson. So another sunny city. Peter B. Good morning. Larry Gitlin. Good morning. Or from Nova. Summer is here. Bamboozle says, sorry I'm late. I was busy sculpting my mustache. You and rolly fingers both. So we'll give you both a Pass there. All right, guys. And I'll put up comments, you know, as, as we go along. So we're going to start out with the, the big one, or at least I think it's, it's the big one. So it's the Mantle redemption card, uh, from the 20, 26 tops was pulled. That's not the Redemption. That's the, the, the grade of the card. I don't know if it's the actual card that is in play, but it's a five and a half from psa. And a father and son from Houston, Texas pulled the card, the Redemption. Obviously they didn't put the. It's graded so it's not going in a pack. But they pulled the Redemption which, uh, is good for this card. And it's already on golden. Last I checked was 94K. Five and a half, guys, as we kind of did some talking before we went live. Five and a half generally, you know, between two and a quarter, 225, $300,000. But the, the person that pulled the card wasted no time getting, uh, the redemption on Golden. So if you want a PSA, five and a half from of Mickey Mantle, 52 tops, you know, it's that golden. Guys, kind of your thoughts here on this card, you know, and, and, and selling it that quick. You know, I say the car, but the Redemption is good for Orlando. Well, I mean I, I think it's first, it's great that a breaker didn't pull it as a father and son. And it's always good to see that, you know, versus big breakers like backyard like that pulling that. And you know, they, they put up the, you know, the, the redemption without even knowing what the grade or what the card was. So I think that was a little bit of a risk because, you know, they just showed shared the card. I mean, you know, tops just shared the card I think just a few days ago. So I think it was kind of risky just to put it up there. Now most people thought it was going to be a lower grade. I personally, I thought it was going to be, you know, a one or a two or three. I never expected to be a five and a half, so I was surprised with that. And I think this is the actual card that was released. It came out on the Sports Collector's Digest article. So I'm assuming this is the actual card, which looks really, really nice. A little bit off centered, but those cards are always off centered. So it just. Right now it's a great deal at 90,000 at golden when it's probably more like a $250,000 card. And there's Tony with the update. He's doing double duties commenting and. And. But the current bid, 150k. Yeah, yeah. That's the Hammer price currently. Great card. I think it's the first 52 tops redemption maybe since the 91 set Orlando, is that correct? Yes. All right. And that card has a lot of history to it. So I anticipate since this is a full blown redemption, it's handled by tops. I think it's going to surpass the 250000 mark with buyer's premium. It's already at 150, 000 as we said, just based on the hammer. And when I first saw the card, the first thing that came to me was I wonder if Top spotted off of Ash because he seems to have about eight of them in his cases at any given time. But I think it's a great card. All 52 tops mantles are going to have some slant whether it's the top order. The right border is just how the plates were made. And there were two different plates as folks know, type one and type two. But I think it's a wonderful card and I'm happy for whoever's going to win the card and especially for the father and son duo. Let me ask you guys this. Would you what are your thoughts on this where PSA re slabs the card and not changing the grade the card's graded but re slabs the card and put something on the flip to signify like this card was the card in the Tops Redemption giveaway. Does that make any difference? You don't want to see that. You'd like to see that to kind of maybe set the card a little apart from just all the five and a half or fives. You know, just give some additional provenance to what the card represents or. Or the backstory or you rather not Whoever wants to go first. Well, I do think that they probably should have done that already because I guess it would have been really great providence to know and you know, some people will definitely, you know, pay up for Providence. You know, I already have a 52 mantle and mine. I know the providence of mine, which is great to have and I paid up because of. I know the history of the card and I know that mine came right from the original owner to me, so the guy that pulled it from the pack. So for me that that means a lot and I paid up for that. So I do really think that the providence is something that we would add value to the card and it would be great if, if I won that card. I would definitely like to have you know PSA put that on their redemption because I think that that will add to the value. But you know it's a great idea. I wish that Topps would have thought of that and have done that already for that one. And of course the rest of them like maze that was also pulled exact etc Knowing golden as in Ken and his relationship with psa, I think he will have the card holdered in a brand new slab just for the aesthetics of it. Regarding the pedigree, if this was the Joe Orlando led collectors I think the pedigree would be there. I don't think it's going to happen because collectors under Nat Turner seems not to like to create brand new pedigrees and I think when golden sold the Pokemon card that what's his name owned. I should know his name because my kids used to watch him. They didn't have a pedigree on that card either. And that was re and that was a reholded car too which Ken had done put the necklace on. So I don't think it's going to get the pedigree but it will be re oldered and it will help the value regardless whether it's folded or not. I mean whether it's reholded or not. But it's going to help. And then with the pedigree I think it will go for more if it had it. But people are always going to remember about where the car came from and if it gets sold down the road. Any auction house will will mention that. Yeah, Cooter says you know that those added things are just scan the mill. What's going on everyone? 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Visit safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save more money out of buyers. Not I, I can't really disagree, but, you know, gives a little story or backstory to the card itself. I don't. Excuse me, I don't care either way because I don't have the card. But maybe if I did, I'd feel a different sort of way, but it probably would increase the value. I if, you know, if you ask me, would it. I. It would. So here's my next question. And this is to the chat room as well as well as Orlando and Tony, if you would have had pulled the redemption card, what would have you done? In Orlando's case, he already has a copy of this card, so his answer might vary or maybe not. So I don't know who, again, who wants to go first? I'm gonna pull the. The slide off here. But, you know, what would you have you've done if you pulled the redemption? Well, maybe I guess I'll go first as I'm going to talk here. But yeah, for me, already have my copy. I'm happy with my copy. It's actually better centered than that card, even though it's a lot lower grade. I don't have a, you know, I would have, I would have redeemed the card first of all, not just sold the. The redemption certificate. I would have redeemed the card and then I would have sold the card. If I can get a quarter of a million dollars for that card, hey, I'll definitely do that and have a huge credible budget to go to the national or just to pay off a lot of the bills, you know, pay off my house with that. Since I don't have a 52 tops mantle, I. And if I would have pulled it, I would have redeemed it and I would have kept it because buying a 52 tops mantle right now, it's extremely tough. They might as well buy a Wagner to some extent because, you know, the Same group of 5 to 10 dealers have a monopoly on all the cards. It just makes it tough to win one at auction unless you get lucky and you're able to buy one privately. Yeah, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, but there's a Mookie makes a great comment, right. The actual redemption card itself will be Worth something, right? Because of what it signifies. But here's the question. You have to. Does tops take, you know, top slash fanatics, take that back and then destroy it like. Or does the. No. Does the person who pulled it get it back still? Like. I don't know the. Yeah, you know, I know some Redemptions, you have a code. You scratch off the code you entered in the system, and you. You have a used redemption card, which in this case will have some value. But did they do. I don't know. I don't think they did that. I don't think you're putting in the code. 452. I think that's more like, hey, contact us at this number or something like that. We need the car. Like, I don't know where the. The redemption card winds up, but if. If the puller gets to keep it, there's an additional sale, right? In the sense. Because you can sell the. The mantle card itself and the. The redemption card, so. But it's a great point by Mookie there, right? You don't even think about that song. So sometimes for me, I don't have this card. I would sell it. Whether that's. Sell the redemption, get the actual card. And, you know, I. I would. I almost think I'd sell the redemption, guys. And here's why. Because then you don't have to worry about shipping the actual card. Like, if you redeem the card, get the mantle, then sell it, then you got to ship it and cross, you know, be nervous until it gets an auction house or wherever your. Whatever platform or way you are are selling it. So I think I'd sell the Redemption, and I think I probably, you know. I know, I know. Tony, you said, you know, it's getting harder to buy this particular card. I'd buy a lesser grade for. For, you know, lesser money, if you will. And like Upstate sports card says, you know, I'd buy. I'd buy a. A lesser grade mano and a bunch of other cards on my target and maybe even put some money in the bank or do some stuff like that. So that's what I do. That way you still get a Mantle. It's not the actual man of the redemption was for, but you still. You still have that. You check that box off, and you can check a bunch of other boxes off at the same time. That's. That's what I would. So it. It just became public that The Fred Couples 52 mantle, which was nicely centered, I think was a 2.5. It was at auction Heritage, maybe two or three months ago, the purchaser of that made it public who he is. So I'll just say Brady Hill bought the card. It's his fourth mantle of various crates. And if that was like 200,000, give or take. So if that 2.5 is 200 or 225 and you have a 5.5, even if you cut that grade in half and you go to a two, you're still spending, you know, depending on the eye appeal, over $125,000. So that's why I would just keep it instead of just playing the gambling game, going for a lower copy. Yeah, yeah. It's tough. Listen, it's a. It's a nice problem to have, right? It sure is. Those are the kind of. Those are the kind of problems I rather have than some of the ones we actually get. But, you know, baboozle says he need a special chain to display his Redeem Mantle card and walk around and show that bad boy. But who else we got? Foul boy, foul five ball says, I would keep my rough 50 and keep this man. Why not own two? So he's like, hey, I'm. I'm not with Orlando. I'm. I'm keeping both of them. So. Yeah, well, if you're gonna. If you're gonna definitely keep the redemption to keep the part that's part of the story, so you keep it together, I think. And that's probably. Yeah, right here. Yeah, yeah. Upstate sports card says Redeem card should be sold along with the slave to decree it more. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's lots of ways you can go. But I. I guess the one thing that stood out to me, you know, is how fast this seemed to get to market. Like, you know, and I get it. May. We don't know this father and son. Maybe they're not even vintage. Obviously, they're open 20, 26, tops. Modern cards. Or maybe the vintage doesn't move their meter like it does ours. And a lot of the people in the chat room, no, that's not a crime. And they. They happen to pull it, and they're like, you know what? We don't have any vintage cards, so why. You know, this is a great one, but, you know, we're gonna cash out. And that's apparently looks what. Looks like what they're. So Babuza says, start your mantle grade Rainbow. Good luck. Good luck to you. And Tony would say, good luck to you, too, but. So, yeah. So congrats to. To the father and son that pulled it. They're gonna get A payday, any way you slice it. Right. And, you know, we'll see what tops does in the future. Are we gonna see, you know, another iconic card as. As a redemption? It's almost like they have to do something. Maybe, maybe not another mantle, but they almost. You almost feel like each year a flagship, they're gonna have to do another card, whatever that card may be. So it'll be interesting to see what they do. Might be hard to top. That's sort of like, you know, the godfather of tops cards. But we'll see what. Well, John, remember, this is series one. I think that with series two, they were also gonna insert other vintage cards in there. Other redemption cards for vintage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm. What I'm saying is even like for like 20, 27. Series one, what direction? Obviously, I think in the series two, you're not going to get more manels, but, you know, they always try to create that buzz. There's already a buzz. But they sort of up the ante with the mantle this year. Like, what will they do next year as well? So Tony wants a. A Tops, Tiffany, Steve Gelt. So if you listen, as the redemption. As the redemption. Yeah. Mookie says, I don't know how old the sun was in this case, but he's. Mookie says, I worry my son would cash out. Cut off his father too many times. My son's 26. He does collect cards a little bit, but not like on the same wavelength that I do. So again, you know, if I pull this card and sold it, I'd buy him something. I'd buy him something. I'll put it that way. So Bob, Bob just brought up a good point. Sorry, I know. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. But same thing that happened with the 52 manual back in 91. And also the Hannes Wagner card. The people the winners couldn't get couldn't keep the cards because of the IRS taxes. So that's may have maybe the story here. Yeah, you know what, that's a good point because I. I'll even. It's not card related, but my wife's cousin was on the Price is Right and they won an expensive car and they didn't need a car. They had cars and the tat. Rather than pay the taxes, they just sold the car that they won on the prices. So it's not. It's not cards. It was a car, but the same concept, right. To get out, like, I don't want to pay taxes. I don't need another car. My. Our cars are Fine. And they just sold it. They never even took ownership. They never used. They just, you know, sold the title. And I don't know how that whole deal went down, but they never took possession of the the car they want on the prices. Right? So. So yeah, that's a great point. Right. You know, depending on where you is is the taxes you pay. I have had no luck lately. Wait. Lady luck Ritzy. I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com they have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack craps and bubble craps. You can even get a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. 10 bucks for 30. I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now. Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This week at Safeway and Albertsons. Six to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are 199 each. Limit three member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spare ribs. Bone in previously frozen are $2.99 per pound. Limit four member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English cucumbers sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are $0.99 member price. Visit Safeway or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save based on the state you live or where tops it. Like how does that work? No Tony Orlando, I'm not sure. Probably by the state I would imagine. But you know the one that pulled the Hannes Wagner, I think it was a post woman. Post postman or post lady from Florida, I think it was. And she sold it immediately because of the taxes. Yeah. It might be like a bonus where you have to pay federal tax and then state comes after you too. So. Yeah, and they did say irs, so. And that's usually federal. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, so, you know, congrats to the people who pulled it and they're gonna have a financial windfall from it, you know, and I hope they use it wisely. And you know, again, I don't know how old the sun is. Is his 20s? Is it a young son? Maybe his college education could be paid for and then some, but. Or they could just, you know, cash out and buy a bunch more. 20, 20 top swags. There's no shortage of it. So. So. And upstate sports says you can get out of payment system with the irs. That is true. I know. Even with sales tax. Like if you owe a lot of sales tax. You like a payment schedule. So there you. All right, guys, so the next story here that we're going to cover is, and it's not as big as the one we just talked about, but, you know, CTCA Certified Trading Card association is launching a global trading card registry system where, you know, you can upload your cert numbers, you can report like if your graded cards were stolen, someone who's going to buy a large deal, maybe they get a bad vibe, they can cross reference to make sure that these cards are not on these stolen list. It's, and, and the ctca, they've got a lot of programs that they want to implement besides this one. This was the one we're going to talk about today. But they want to do like a, you know, certified retailer, certified breaker, uh, where people, it's almost like a better business bureau where as long as you do everything above board, you would be on the certified list. Full transparency. I'm a very honest guy, so I wanted, I want to state this so someone doesn't say, oh, nice of you to mention them, but you didn't mention the, the second part. The second part is this. They are a sponsor of Sports Car Nation and I am on the board of directors. I haven't attended a board meeting yet. They've only had one and they're, I'll be at the second one. So here's my thing, guys. Before I kind of let you guys do, I'm for anything that can make the hobby a safer and better place. And you know, so I, I, I'll support that. As someone who sets up at shows still, I've been a show dealer since the age of 15 who does things above board and, and I support anything that wants to make the hobby safer and better. And that's really their goal. Guys, kind of your thoughts. And I know I'll start with Orlando because you said, you know, I want to get proper credit. Right. I think you mentioned Orlando. What is it? A Tiffany Cards has a, a list as well, right? Yeah. You know, of course with all of cards going up, you know, theft has become a big thing. You know, not just at shows, but also at card shop. And almost every week you hear of a card shop somewhere that's broken into and stuff is stolen from there. And I think that it's a great thing for a CTCA to be able to post cards that have been stolen either from you or, you know, personally or from dealers. I mean, what happened to Ash a few years ago was just horrendous and you know it, it's hard to recover cards like that. And I know a lot of guys are going to say those cards probably were cracked out or submitted but you know, many of those cards were probably just resold somewhere in some marketplace or just somewhere out there or maybe even to other dealers. So I think it's a great idea for someone to be able to put cards that have been stolen somewhere on a website. Especially when you're talking higher end cards. If you're going to buy a card that's you know, five figure or six figure card, you know, I think it's a good thing to go out there and check to make sure you're not buying a stolen card. And especially when a lot of these cards are going to be sold for way under market value because they were stolen. So I think that you know, anything you could do to recover some of these cards is great for the hobby. And even better I think the Tiffany cards site which is going to have both stolen cards but more importantly they're going to have altered cards and it's already up. You can go ahead and go on that tiffanycards.com I think it is and just look at, look through there and you can see altered cards. So if you're going to buy a card it's always good to search there. You know I know that they have a lot of that stuff, you know other websites, you know, I can't remember right now, not just net 54 but I can't remember the name of the other side. There's a, there's a, there's a few of them currently. So they have, I just saw they got stolen cards.info which is okay, they got card legit. Then you got the typical forms like, like what you just talked about and now you have the new player in the, in the, in the game. Yeah but I think you know, it's a great thing people should look if you're going to buy a high end card, you know, take a look at it, make sure it's not stolen. Because you know what if you do buy a stolen card, eventually it gets found out and it comes back to you, you know, you have to probably return that card. That's. Yeah, well yeah, that's what happened to me. If you want to tell us, I have a story with Durham from my store days. Tony, I don't know if you want to share. Yeah, please come. No, no, I'll go. After you. So I had a card store many moons ago or to go but years ago, and I had a person come into the store, say, hey, do you buy cards? I said, always. You know, I'll take a look. I bought, I don't know, five to seven cards. I don't remember all of them. It was probably like a Henderson rookie. I seems to stand out. I'm in New York, so I think there was a couple manly rookies in there. They had a lot of New York flavor to it. So I bought like five or six cards, put them out, and literally, I don't know if it was the next day or two days later, two uniformed police officers came up. I was on the second floor in the building. They came up the stairs and they had a. A printed. You know, none of the cards were graded, but they had a printed piece of paper with the five or six cards on it and said, these cards were stolen. We have, you know, we have. We think that they. They might have. You might have bought them on, you know, you didn't know they were stolen. And I'm, you know, like I said, I'm very transparent. I said, yeah, I literally. They're just put out. I. I did buy this lot. And they're like, we know who stole them. And they had a picture of the gentleman, and they're like, was this the guy you bought these from? I'm like, it is. And they're like, we're. I hate to tell you this, you know, John, we're gonna need those cards. So I had to, you know, pull them out from the showcase, give the officers the cards. They. They gave me like, an affidavit of taking them a pick, you know, all the paperwork. And they basically. I said, well, you're like, how does this work? Like, am I out the money I paid for them? They're like, here's what's going to happen. We're going to arrest this individual, prosecute him. He's going to have to pay restitution, and then you'll get. You'll get your money back. And so six months later, to make a long story, six months later, everything was resolved. I don't know they got any jail time. I would venture not. But he had to pay back the money. And I got a check on police, you know, a police check for the. What I paid. But in a sense, for six months, I was out the money with nothing to show for it until the police check came. So, you know, that's. That's the story. So you got to be careful if you buy. And obviously, I didn't know they were stolen guys, but that's the risk you take, right? So anything that if you, you know, I didn't really get a weird vibe necessarily on that purchase, but there's been other times when I'm, you know, dealing with someone where something feels off, right. And especially if it's a bigger purchase and you want to just err on the side of caution and you have a tool that you know can maybe save you from something like that happening ahead of time, why not? Right? It's. Especially if it's free. It's free to use. Why not utilize it, right? If it saves you one time or saves anybody one time, right. It's well worth what it costs, which is nothing. Nothing to the user. I mean, obviously, you know, you got to pay your website fees and all that, but as far as the user price, you know, it's nice that that tool is available. Go ahead. If anyone wants to yeah, your story. Yeah, I was going to say so the GL so the Global Trading Card Registry is great. I typed in a cert of a car that I purchased in early 2020 24. It was a neat hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips and being that I'm going to be passenger Princess, I Love playing on Spinquest.com Spinquest has all of my favorite slot games. Live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to Spinquest right now and get yourself a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spinquest is a free to play Social Casino prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details this week at Safeway and Albertsons. Six to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are $1.99 each. Limit three member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spare ribs. Bone in previously frozen are $2.99 per pound limit four member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English English cucumber sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are $0.99 member price. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save Rookie it was in a PSA 3.5 which I'm actually looking at the card right now. I checked the cert. No issues. I bought it in February of that year. It was like a birthday gift for myself. Then later in March I realized I forgot to put it inside my PSA set registry. Not for for a registry purposes, just so it's tied to my account so in case, if anything does happen, I'll know, you know, I'll get a notification. So when I did that in late March, not even a month later, a month and a half later, I realized that it's the cert was deactivated along with other cards and the police. So I called up collectors and they said police report was filed with other vintage football cards. And so I asked them, well okay, what do I do with this card? And this is 2024. So I'm sure collectors has a different policy now this, they just said just return the card back to the person who you bought it from. I asked, well what if I can I. We give it back to the owner of the card. We don't have a process in place for that. And then unless it's in the same slab with the same cert. So a week later I find out these cars are now in SGC slabs. Now also part of the police report had a Bronco New Jersey PSA one in their toe. So I found that card also and I sent collectors pictures of both cards and said we can't do anything with these. Even though both cards had unique identifying marks, you know, creases and centering. And then when you go to the PSA website they don't keep, they don't archive the photos of, of cards that had deactivated certs. So with this new solution John that you're talking about, if they keep the pictures of the cards on there and they're high resolution scans, as much as what you can get for the people that are reporting the card stolen, I think it's great because even if it finds its way into a different slab, there's unique identifying marks, stains, gum stains, creases. At least there's a chance you can go to the authorities. And now you say oh my card is in this different slab. Now here's a new cert, but it's still my card. I think it's going to help the hobby. Yeah, no doubt. Here's a, here's a comment from file5ball. Apparently Mike, there was something extra in my copy. I think this is towards me with the story I told about those five or six stolen cards. He says stolen question mark. Do they have proof that it was those exact cards? The proof was yeah, I mean they weren't graded so there was no certain numbers. But again they weren't gem men cards. So like the pictures match the card like with like if there was a slightly ding corners it was the exact Corner. And then they had a picture of the gentleman they were looking for, which was the gentleman I bought the card. So every. Everything matched up. The backstory too. To add one more wrinkle, the gentleman who stole the card stole it from someone he knew. It wasn't like he broke in the store. It was an acquaintance of him, of his. I'd say friend, but you don't, you shouldn't be stealing at all, let alone friends. So he took the cards from someone he knew. That person reported to the police, they got a picture of them. And so every. Everything cross referenced and matched up. Had it not, I probably would have been more like, hey, how do we know, you know, these are these. But it was the exact six cards, you know, it wasn't three or four was every card I bought, they had the, you know, the printout of and the picture of the person I bought the cards from. So in the end, like I said, six months later, I was, I got my money back. But it was that six months. Like you paid money and you have. Now you don't have the cards either. So but, you know, that's the chance you take. And the person who. The cards went back to, the original owner. And I had to wait the six months to, to get what I paid for the cards back. So had a happy ending in the end. It just took six months to get there. So there you go. Yeah. And you know, those things happen. And also the altered card issues, you know, the, the, the website I was thinking about was blowout cards. Who. They put out a whole list of altered cards. And you know, that helped me years ago because I had purchased, you know, I'm, I'm big with the 1888 Goodwin Champion cards and I've got the whole set there. So as I was upgrading my set, I purchased some cards many years ago from pwcc, unfortunately. And checking the blowout forum, I found out that some of them, a few of them were, were cleaned. They, they were altered. And you know, unfortunately, I didn't get an opportunity to do anything about it because of PWCC going out of business and all that. And even though I sent them, you know, the information, you know, I think it was Betsy over there, you know, said I needed more proof. I don't know what more proof. But, you know, so when this Tiffany cards came out with their altered card list, you know, I'm always up to checking all of my cards from that set especially they're so old and they could be cleaned. And as I looked up, you know, I I saw that they had a Beecher card, which is the first football card ever to come out, and they had a PSA5. I was altered and I have a PSA5. So I went to check and it wasn't mine, minus Queen. Mine is fine, thank God. But, you know, it showed there that that PSA 5 used to be a two and a half. And they literally have pictures of it as a two and a half with the glue stain in the back. And then it was clean, and now it's a five and a PSA holder, and it went from an SGC two and a half to a PSA five. So, you know, those are things that if you're going to spend money on a card like that, which is a pretty expensive card, you need to be very, very careful. And, you know, I, I've been screwed in the past and I just want to make sure that anybody that, you know, is going to buy a card that is rather expensive. Check. Blowout. Check. Tiffany cards. Check. To make sure that that card, you know, again, is not stolen and more importantly, is not altered. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a great point. And, and what obviously some of these cards go for, right? I mean, this, the story I told, you know, memory served me correct, was a couple hundred bucks at the time, which years ago was more than a couple hundred bucks today, but still wasn't thousands of dollars in the sense where a lot of transactions are at today. Five Ball says, yeah, you're lucky to get your money back from the cops. It's a great point. And even after like four or five months, I'm like, I'm probably out this money. Like, I hadn't heard nothing. Every once in a while I'd call the police office and just try to get an update, and they're like, we've made the arrest. It's got to go through the court system. The judge has got to issue, you know, his proclamation and then the restitution. So there was different points. I'm like, I'm probably never going to see my money back, but six months later I did get it back. But sometimes, like Five Ball says, that's not always what happens if they don't either catch the person, you know, in this case, you know, they caught him, but that's not always the case. And so, you know, that I was fortunate, I guess, that, uh, that, uh, it had, uh, a good ending for, for everybody except for the, the thief. Right. The ending wasn't as, as good for him. But the, the original Owner of the cards got his six cards back, I got my money back. And I'm not sure what punishment. I'm gonna guess probation, you know, or something like that. Community service. Maybe he had to go pick up some trash on the side of the highway. I don't know. That wasn't privy. The only thing they told me was they caught him, he was prosecuted, he plea bargained, whatever that looks like. And so you know, that's, that's that story. So never thank. I'll knock on wood. I've never had that happen again, whether at the store or even as a dealer. But again, it's nice to have tools. Right. I do buy cards all the time. If you just get a weird feeling, even if you don't get a weird feeling if, if it's a large transaction and you just want to err on the side of caution and look some of these cards up just to make sure there's nothing funny going on with them. And again, you could look them up on a database and not find nothing. And it could still, I mean that's the chance you take. It's not 100% foolproof, but it's a nice that there is a tool there that maybe can prevent you from losing money or getting taken. Right. So. All right guys, another topic we're going to get into and I know Tony, you gotta, you gotta run. You got some things going on at home. I appreciate you. Yeah, yeah. We can go to this topic and then I'll. Yeah. So we got the, you know, the franchising of LCS's. Right. But we're seeing some of the LCS's take, you know, in, in Jeff Wilson and Card HQ's case. I know he's not everyone's favorite. He's taking investment money and plans on opening more card HQs across across the the nation. And we've seen other stores. Right. The road show at different locations and others. I probably forget someone unintentionally, but we're seeing, you know, you know, stores kind of the same store just franchise and being location. Hey everybody, lady luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now all summer long I'm going to be celebrating by playing on finquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spin Quest is a free to play social casino. Boyd, where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This week at Safeway and Albertsons, 6 to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are $1.99 each. Limit three member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spare ribs bone in previously frozen are $2.99 per pound. Limit four member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English cucumbers sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are $0.99 member price. Visit Safeway or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save the next gentleman. I'm actually going to bring my friend Rex Goetcher on and he he has two stores, one in Indiana and and Michigan. I wanted I said who better if we're going to talk about this topic, who better to someone that owns more than one store and like what he thinks of this corporate corporation, if that's not heated up of LCS's Is it good? Is it bad? Does it hurt the little guy so to speak? You know what, what is his thoughts? So I'm gonna bring Rex on now as well. So morning sir. Hey guys, thanks for having me. I'm in the shop today so if I'm needed I might have to jump up and yeah, and so pardon me if that happens but it's usually kind of slow in the morning so we'll see what happens. Yep, another one someone met. You know, card vault, the Tom Brady deal. We're seeing more of those pop up in cities especially close to like sporting stadiums and arenas and that sort of thing. You know, I brought this up which as a topic on on pre like you know, oversaturation of card shows. Can we get there where card stores like I, I'm an LCS guy as a former owner 1 I just talked about that there's nothing beats an in person transaction. I think Rex and most of us here and in the chat room will agree, yes, it's, it's convenient to buy cards on ebay or an auction house or online. But nothing beats an in person transaction where you either buy or sell that card, get the the money instantly or get the card right there and it's in your hand. You can look at it up close. So I'm an LCS guy. I think they're so important and vital to the hobby. But can we get to, you know, a place where maybe we have too many or the corporate feel of it maybe is a bit much. I'll Start with you, Rex. I mean you have, like I said, you have two stores. You're not so much. Not a really. I don't know, I don't think you'd call it a franchise. You just have two locations. I'll let you speak to that. But your thoughts on kind of this current trend when it comes to. I'll let you in this lcs. Your thoughts on kind of this current trend when it comes. Sorry, John, I'm having some audio problems. Problems. Yeah, I'm hearing myself again. Yeah, I'm hearing myself again. So I've lost the volume on the phone. So hold on. Sorry. All right, let's. While you're working on that Rex, we'll start with Orlando. I mean, your thoughts on this, you know. Hello? All right, let me jump out and then come back in. Okay. Okay. All right, so Orlando again, like kind of. What are your feelings here? Yeah, John, I mean, you know, it just seems like, you know, all these bigger companies and it's not just Tom Brady now you're going to have Lewis Hamilton coming in and opening up a bunch of shops also and of course Jeff Wilson. And you know, it's just a shame that fanatics or and tops fanatics basically is. Looks like to me they're kind of trying to drive out the smaller LCs and you know, they're limiting a lot of the distribution of the new products and focusing more on giving it to the bigger guys and the breakers. So it's kind of disappointing and I think it's going to hurt a lot of the smaller guys like Rex who even though he's got two locations, you know, that's not considered one of the, the type of guys that fanatics want. They've become so picky with who they accept. You know, you have to have a lot of media, social media presence now. You have to share almost all of your records with them. You know, they're limiting the, the distribution of new products to the smaller guys. So you know, I feel bad for the small guys like Rex that you know, they may be driven out because of the, the way that fanatics is focusing on some of these much bigger and name brand type Tom Brady's and Lewis Hamilton's and Jeff Wilson's of the world. I think we got Rex back. I'd like to hear his opinion. Yeah, Rex, I mean your thoughts on this sort of. I don't want to say. Sorry guys, I can't hear you through here. Let me try this one. Yeah. All right, let me. Well, here's what I think what do you think? I kind of agree with you, Orlando. I think, you know, it's, you hear, you know, obviously Tops is not short printing a lot of their product, especially on their, their lower end. I don't know if there is a lower end anymore, but they're, they're base models, if you will. They use a car term, right? Flagship and, and it's everywhere, right. Someone, a buddy of mine who knows what I do, he went to the True Value hardware store to buy something. He was on a project at his house and he sent me a picture and it was a whole section. It wasn't even just a few, it was a whole section of wax like you'd see at like Walmart or, or Target. And he's like, I'm at the hardware store, man. They're even got like a section of sports cards. Like, that's, that's crazy. And, but that's where we're at. So like, but then you hear like, my local store here was called Gideon's Gallery, run by two gentlemen, really nice guys. And for, for a long time they couldn't even get direct with Tops. And I think so I worry about that, right? You're going to have like 10 franchise stores of one company like Tom Brady, maybe 10 card HQs. And you know, they're all going to have direct with, with fanatics, right? So they're going to get the product at all those stores. But you know, guys that are really putting a lot of elbow grease and, and hard work and determination in might have to wait years. And like the story I mentioned with Gideon, they had to wait years. They are, they are online with Tops, but even now they're like, they can't get everything. They're only allotted a certain amount and of only certain products. And not all those products are the big winners as, as we would say in the hobby. So that's my fear, right, is for those people who do and really the, the trench work that they're going to sort of be like on the outside looking in and they're trying to build their business organically and you know, you know, I'm not to use, you know, Tom Brady doesn't need the money. And listen, when we talk about the card vault, Tom Brady, he's paid it, he's charging a license. It's not like he's always at the store sorting cards. So keep that in mind as well. So I think we got Rex again. Let's. Third time the charm, maybe. I hope so. I kept losing audio every time you would let me Join. The audio would go off, I could hear you so I switched devices. Okay. All right. So you know, me and Orlando sort of weighed in here but you, you, you know I used to own a card store, Rex. As, as you know, I don't now you have two, like I said, two states kind of close, you know, in the vicinity of other. Each other. But your thoughts on this franchising of LCS's good, bad, both. What. How does it affect you or not affect you? Well, I, I think it's interesting. It's sort of inevitable, you know, from, for fanatics to, with their stated goal to, to 10x the hobby to really push cards out in a lot of different, a lot of different ways. But if you look at our, let's take our Valparaiso location for example. It's a town of about 35,000 people and it right in our market. In that market in Valparaiso we have us, we have a second card shop that, that's a competition competitor. We have Walmart, Meijer, Target, Barnes and Noble, Gamestop, I'm probably forgetting Base Hardware, Dick Sporting Goods, all selling cards to the same $35,000, 35,000 people market and whatever visitors are. And we all currently peacefully coexist. But there's a big difference between a hobby shop, as you guys know, and a Target or a Walmart. You know, other than the other LCs. The experience that you're going to get buying cards even at like a Dick's or a Ace hardware, for crying out loud is going to be much different than the experience you're going to get in an lcs. From a standpoint, from fanatics, I mean their stated goal of 10x in the hobby is one thing, but they've also been very clear that they believe the best way to attract and retain new collectors is through a well functioning local card shop. They're very clear, they recognize that the experience that you're going to get in a Target or a big box is not going to necessarily keep you in the hobby. Most of those people don't know anything about cards. They don't actively buy and sell singles, which is a huge part of the business. As you know, it's not just about selling wax Max, which is really what those guys are doing and LCS does it all. So I think it's sort of inevitable that you'll get the big players like you know, Tom Brady and Cards HQ to, to to spread their wings and, and open more LCs of a bigger variety. I think the pain point for them is going to be staffing, quality staffing, finding the talent to run these operations like a local card shop. As you guys know, it's not the easiest thing to do to find people that number one that are, that you can trust. But you also have to be able to make the financial decisions on a daily basis on buying, selling and trading that will impact your business. And if you don't have the right people in place to do that, it's a big part of the ecosystem that will, that will be lost. Yeah, it's a great point too with the singles Rex, right? That was, you know, even back in my dad, obviously singles and wax and, and this was the junk wax era. So I had, I had flir calling me every other day, you want more cases of 92 FLIR, you know, the ugly green stuff that's still ugly even 34 years later. But it is a great point, right, that the, and plus, besides the singles Rex, right, And, and you know, this Orlando knows this people, right? The, the conversations you have well with the owners of the shop or the employees of the store and then the other customers, right. That camaraderie, that fraternity of the hobby that you get in an lcs, not in, you know, necessarily a Target or Walmart or hardware store that is selling wax boxes. Do you, you know, there was a comment. Let me see if I could find it up here. Let me ask Rex. Yeah, go ahead, Orlando. Yeah, go ahead. Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on spinquest and there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get thirty dollar coin packs for just ten dollars. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash Prizes. That's at spinquest.comS-P-I-N q u-e s t.com Spin Quest is a free to play social media casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This week at Safeway. And Albertsons. Six to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are $1.99 each. Limit three member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spare ribs. Bone in previously frozen are $2.99 per pound limit four member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English cucumber sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are $0.99 member price. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save, you know we, we hear that Fanatics is encouraging a lot of the smaller LCs to do more social media, to have breaking site, you know, things like that so they can continue to get more distribution. Are they, you know, pushing you to do more of that kind of stuff? Rex? Not necessarily. What they have is a, they have a seller scorecard. I think it's called a seller scorecard. So there's a lot of different things that factor into it that impact your allocations. The biggest one is how much you spend with them both on wave one. Well, sometimes there's more than two waves, Wave one, wave two, sometimes wave three. Also, you know, are you participating in their other projects, parts of their business, their supplies that they sell? Are you consigning with Fanatics Collect? Are you, are you setting up at, you know, their, their event, you know, every year, Fanatics Fest and then also are you buying memorabilia through Fanatics? All those things can impact your Scorecard. But beyond that, the way your store looks, how well organized it is. Do you participate in RIP Nights and other special events and promote, actively promote Topps products via your social channels, your website, so forth and so on. So it's all, it's all part of it. They're not dictating, hey, you must do this xyz. It's just, you know, look, the people that are doing all those things in a big way are getting the most allocation and if you choose not to do one or more, just understand that it's going to impact your, you know, so far they've treated us very well. I, you know, not in every case. I don't love the dynamic pricing piece, but that's the ways of the world. Now they have, you know, been very clear that, you know, they, they, they're not opening any, any more new accounts for the foreseeable future. They said they may open it up, the application process to new stores after the national. Not sure why that was the timeline, but that's what they stated a few months ago. But yeah, allocations are tight. Everybody wants their product and you know, there's no shortage of companies like ours lining up to try to get it. So here's a question, Rex. Like, so you mentioned how they've sort of locked or closed, you know, new accounts, being able to get online for products, right? But then you have like, let's use Card HQ because of, you know, they're planning to really go across country with investment money from investment firms and seed money. Should they be a lot like if he's already, and I'm sure He is. If you're already with TOPS and you open nine stores, do those. Should those nine new stores automatically be. Should you get nine times more or less? You know what, how does that work? I guess I'll ask you. Well, I can't speak on behalf of them. I will say this. And. And cards HQ is probably a different animal because of their size and Jeff's connection with TOPS through all the different ways that he deals with them. So their agreement, whatever they have, is probably very specific to them. But, you know, in general, they. They told us clearly in a town hall a few months ago, don't assume that you're gonna get allocations if you open a second shop. They're very keen to. Or second, third or fourth, or whatever. They're very keen to. To. To give allocations to shops that have proven themselves as a valuable TOPS representative. But there's no guarantee. And then. And the reality of it is is that there just isn't. There isn't enough for the product to go around because they don't want to overprint, you know, and some people will say they already are, and certain sets, you know, they'll print to the moon. But, you know, allocations are a weird game. I mean, I don't want to get too deep into it, but sometimes we'll get an initial allocation on a product. Product that is, we know, all know, is a massive print run, you know, and the allocation is very minimal up front. And I think sometimes that's because they're anticipating a huge initial surge of people that want to buy the product when it hits, and they want to offer more on wave 2 and 3 as opposed to wave 1 pricing. I assume that's what they're doing because they're trying to maximize their profits. But, I mean, it's talked about all the time. I mean, everybody at the TOPS conference, everybody's like, how can we get more allocations? How can we get more? How can we. Sure. You know, every time, oh, I only got one case of this, or I didn't get any of this, and so on and so on. It's a constant conversation. But I'll just say this. You know, we. We moved a couple years ago to. To really push areas of our business that are not impacted by any outside entity. Meaning, yeah, you know, psa, tops, Panini, upper deck, whatever. So we deal with all of them in some capacity. And TOPS is, of course, now, because of all the licenses, we have a lot of inventory tied up with them, so they're our main supplier of new inventory. Clearly. And it's not a great position for a retailer to be in, in my opinion, to be that reliant on one entity. So we've started creating our own products. We've really pushed into singles. We've expanded our TCG selection to really kind of diversify so that whatever Tops or any other company might decide to do, you know, won't impact us as drastically as if we just sort of sat and begged effort allocation from Tops. Because that's just not a great business strategy. You can kind of see where things are going. The bigger players are going to get bigger allocations. I mean, that's the way they're going to have it. I mean, it's already happening with Breakers. They get, the breakers get a ton of merchandise compared to a shop. I mean, it's not even close. I mean, some of these breakers are doing hundreds of cases where shops are getting one case or two cases. Yeah, it's, you know, I think like, if I'm, let's say I'm in Seattle and I'm trying to get like direct with Tops and I'm just not getting in. Right. And then Cards HQ comes in and I know we're picking on them, but it's easy, a little fun too. Full disclosure, right? They, they, they open a Seattle store and they get right online with Tops. That would rub me obviously the wrong way. Right, Right. I get that there's some previous, you know, with his, his original locations, but on one hand they're saying we're not taking new, any really new accounts at the moment, but then they're, in a sense they are with certain people. I think to me that's a, a bad look. You don't have to go in, in the detail, Rex. Like, you know, like your gut feeling when you see like this franchise deal, are you indifferent? Do you sort of frown at it? Like, what do you think? Like, well, you know, I'll, you know, from a selfish perspective, I'll, I'll give you a real life example. So it looks like the Chicago Bears are probably going to move to our neighborhood, northwest Indiana. So they're probably going to move out of Chicago. So our stores are located both of them about an hour and a half outside of Chicago. The proposed site in Hammond is 25, 30 minutes from our Valparaiso shop, probably 40 to 40, 45 minutes from our new Buffalo shop. So cards HQ and card vault are in my, in my view are, are very likely to, you know, open a shop near that stadium. So that could impact us in a way. But Again, you go back to what I originally stated. We have all those other competitors literally right in our backyard already. Plus you add tops.com, fanatics.com, panini's website, the big three, you know, Dave and Adams Steel City Blowout Midwest card is in there. We compete with all those people now and we do very well. So we just need to focus on our experience and our customers experience to make sure that we give them the best experience when they're in our shops. And that's what we're, that's what we're focused on is the in person experience and making it the best we can. Yeah, no, it's well said and probably the best approach. You know, control what you can control and, and don't, you know, if you can't control it, what are you gonna do? Right? So focus inwardly that this Bears news not to, you know, go to sports, but it is like that's crazy. If you would have told me, you know, the Bears wouldn't be in Chicago like an iconic franchise, I would have thought you're. You're crazy. Are they. I haven't read a lot because this kind of stories in the last couple days. Are they not Obviously they're going to be the Bears. Are they still going to use the name Chicago? Are they? I would change. Oh, I mean, so the thing you have to. And I guess if you're not in the geography you probably don't understand it. So I wouldn't expect everybody to. But Northwest Indiana is on the same time zone as Chicago. It's the only part of Indiana that's on the central time zone. And the reason why is because it really, for all intents and purposes is, is a suburb of Chicago. So you've got. I don't know. The best thing I should probably compare it to is the jets and the Giants are the New York, but they play in New Jersey. So. Yeah, Mookie just. Yeah, it's the same sort of thing. I mean that New York is a much bigger town than Chicago or city than Chicago. But Chicago's I assume still number three in the country in terms of population. So it's very similar to that. I assume they'll be the Chicago Bears and the same logo as always. I, I can't see any reason change. Yeah, yeah. You know, the train goes right to there anyway, you know, it's not that far away and, and you know, going back to the lcs, the local lcs, you know, there's nothing better than for me, you know, I'll go to My local lcs and they know me by name, the owner knows me, they know the collectors that go in there versus going to a Tom Brady shop or a cars HQ where they have no idea who you are. You're just another person coming in the store. So I do think that that personalized service that the LCS gives is for me as a collector is extremely important to go in there and they say, hey Orlando, how you doing? Thanks for coming back in. They know what I collect, they know what I like. You know, that personalized thing I think is the key to stores like what Rex had. Yeah, it's a good point, Orlando. So, and I assume those bigger operations have some sort of loyalty program or something. But the reality of it is in a small lcs, a reputable LCS like, like there are so many like us around the country and that, that do this. They, they treat those regular customers better. They just do. And they do it because they reward the loyalty. And that's what we do. So you know, if you come to our shop and you're buying stuff at Walmart, Target ripping it and you want to come and sell it to us, great, we'll take a look. But if you're not buying from us, you're not going to get as good of a deal as one of our regular customers. If you're, if you're selling or trading, you're also not going to get first access to, you know, hot product or loyalty discounts or whatever else we, that's one of the things as a small business owner that we can do that's an advantage over any of the big boxes. They just can't. No doubt whether it's slots or live dealers, Spinquest.com has the fun and action you're looking for with Spinquest exclusives. Blackjack, roulette, baccarat and even live dice with craps and bubble craps. The games never stop so you don't have to. And right now new users get $30 coin packs for just 10 bucks. Play now@Spinquest.com SpinQuest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This week at Safeway and Albertsons. Six to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are $1.99 each. Limit three member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spareribs bone in previously frozen chosen are $2.99 per pound limit for member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English cucumbers sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are 99 cents. Member price. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. All right, guys, like Brody said, we're going a little over time. It is one of the topics I advertise. So let's go through it kind of quickly. And I'll. Rex, you can add in here, too. And I know you have prior, like, other than for obvious reasons. Right. God forbid, a death or an illness, you know what, what would cause you to consider not going to the National? And I'll start with Orlando. Like what? You know, I know you go to pretty much all of them. Or at least try. Like, what? Would there ever be a scenario, Orlando, where you're like, you know what? I'm going to Strongsville. I'm not going to the national this year. I'll catch it next year. Or not necessarily. Well, I mean, the money situation, of course, you know, expensive to go to the National. It just seems to get more expensive every year. You know, the hotel and the plane flight and all that, because I can't drive to. You know, some of you guys can. So for me, I think that's it. But, you know, I go every year. You know, I'm. I'm retired. That's kind of my. My trip to Disney World type thing, you know, And I really go more for the friendships, see people that I only see once a year. So for me, I won't miss it, continue to attend the national every year. But I think the biggest issue is what's going on now with everything with the National. The hotels are more expensive. They're being locked up by the National. They're controlling all of the things like that, I think, is one of the things that's kind of hurting. It's a little bit. But overall, I'll continue to go no matter what. That's just who I am. Yeah. So for me, going off screen, I've done this the last couple years. Last year and this year where I'm like, hey, can I, like, maybe, you know, for Chicago, I gotta fly, so I can't drive. So that adds airfare and that sort of thing. I have to run a car, so I'm renting a car. So each of the. Every time it's in Chicago, I don't say every time, but whenever it's in Chicago, I really have to weigh out. Like, do I want to buck up and pay, or can I. Can I sit this one out and catch the next, you know, the next one. And listen, I'm no spring chicken, right? So what? Then the other, you know, you got the two voices on each shoulder, right? The other one's like, how many nationals do you think you have left, Newman? You know what I mean? Don't miss one. And so you play tug of war in your own mind. So last year I made some late scram. Like, my wife asked me, have you done any. Your. She calls it the big show. She doesn't know. She goes, have you booked your big show, like, itinerary, your hotel, blah? And I hadn't yet. And she's like, well, you're gonna do it. And I'm like, what, do you have a boyfriend? You're trying to get rid of me? And she goes, no, but if you don't go, you know, you're going to be home and, like, miserable. And so I said, well, let me try tonight, you know, And I use, like, Expedia or Travel Assets or Orbit to sort of get a package deal with a, a room, a car, in a flight. And I got a great deal. I was surprised that late in the game last year, this year, again, I had the same debate, but I, I didn't need that conversation with my, my wife. I kind of logged on and, and found a good package deal, but it's in Chicago again next year. So I'm sure in my own mind, I will debate, you know, like, hey, three years in a row, could I. Could I take next year Chicago one off and then just go to Detroit in 2028? You know, God willing. But so, so that's. That's my, that's my thing, you know, it's just. And I see a lot of comments with, you know, with finances, right? The more money the trip costs, most likely, the less money you're going to have to buy cards. And I know it's not all about just buying cards. It's seeing all of our hobby friends and the events during the show, after the show, dinners and, and all that's got to be taken into account. But, you know, finance, finances are finances, right? It's an important part of, of whether we can make something happen or, or not. So that's. That's sort of my take on whether I would miss one. I haven't missed one since 2018 at this point. But if I did, like my wife says, I'm sure I'd be probably, like, you know, disappointed. I'm not there for you, Rex. I know, you know, running the two stores, that. That changes the economy equation to getting there and, and like you say, and having staff in place that maybe can handle things, you know, what if you're not there? So. Yeah, that's part of it. The other, the other part too. I mean, Chicago's obviously easy for us because it's close. But personally, I don't love air travel because I. In another lifetime, I was on a plane every single day, it seemed like for about four years. So if I don't have to air travel, I try not to. So location means a lot. I missed the two years ago in Cleveland, even though I wouldn't have had to fly to that could have driven, but I had a knee injury, so I had a torn meniscus, so I couldn't make that one. I went to Atlantic City even though I wasn't really thrilled about doing it. But I did go to Atlantic City. So I guess Detroit is drivable for us, you know, from Michigan. It's actually a lot farther away from Chicago. So we'll probably go to that one because we don't have to fly to it. And then we'll see what happens from there. Yeah, you know, I know people bang bag on, on Atlantic City. And I get why I'm not defending for me and I'm. Selfish bias point of view. I love that because it was, it was a, not a. Not a bad drive. Yeah. For me. The other nice thing is my wife's a beach girl, so she went on that trip and just stayed at the beach every day. And so that trip, that trip came out of our joint account. So that actually saved me, saved me some money as well. So selfishly, I like it when it's drivable and it, and it's a city that has a beach because I can rook my wife. I don't want to say rook, but my wife will go and instead of coming out of just my account, it comes out of our, our joint account. Detroit is so similar. I think Detroit's a six hour drive from where I am here in Syracuse. And I will drive to that there. There eliminates airfare. There eliminates a rent a car. Obviously, if I'm driving, I have my vehicle. So I love when it's in drivable range because it checks two things. The only thing I got to do is find a room because I'll have a vehicle and I won't need a, a flight. So I definitely got again, God willing, I won't miss anything that's drivable. It's when it's that airfare and where it Is. And the finance and obviously, God forbid, like an illness or worse. So, you know, that's the tough part for me is. Is that I can't drive anywhere because I'm in South Florida. I'm far from everything. I mean, I was hoping maybe they would go to Atlanta. I'd probably drive there. But unless it's an event in Florida, maybe in Orlando. Disney World is. That would be great. But other than that, you know, I have to fly everywhere, and that makes it real difficult, you know, like Rex said, you know, I hate flying myself, but it's once a year, so I kind of force myself to go anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I'm. I used to be a nervous flyer. The first time I flew. Here's a crazy story real quick. The first time I flew was on my honeymoon. We went to dinner, Disney World, and I was like a nervous wreck. And my wife's a nurse, and she's like, take this. And I'm like, what is it? I'm like, are you trying to kill me for the insurance money already? We just got married. And she's like, no, it's a Xanax. It'll. It'll take the edge off. It's the only time I used it on a flight. I've flown many times. I don't want to say many times, but quite a bit since my honeymoon. And I. I don't. I don't have to use anything, but I definitely can't sleep. I have trouble sleeping in anything moving in general, whether it's a car, a train, a bus, a plane. It's just because I'm not in control and that. That I'm. That nervous energy. Right. So rarely will I sleep. Probably the only time I'll fall asleep is in the car when someone else is driving. And it depends who that the driver is. My level of comfort. So. So, yeah, but if it's. If the national drivable, I'm for sure in or going to try to make it happen. If it's a flight location. That's where I debate in my mind and. And someone said my shoulders talk to each other. So. But, you know, I'm looking forward to the Detroit one because I've never. I like going places that I've never been before. Right. And Detroit's a city. I've been to Chicago quite a bit now, and Detroit never so kind of, you know, and I always try whatever city Orlando it's in. I try to catch something, you know, Chicago, I try to go to either a White Sox or Cubs game. Detroit, I'm going to see if the Tigers are in town that week and check out that stadium I've never been to. And the Tigers, you know, in a perfect world, they'd be playing the Mets. And so I'd watch my Mets in Detroit. So, but all right, guys, we went, we went into some overtime. Rex, thank you for popping on and giving, sharing some of your insight as an LCS owner times two. And your thoughts. You're welcome. Yeah, Orlando, thank you for pinch hitting. Unfortunately, you know, again, we'll kind of close, you know, keep, keep the families of Victor and Samuel Evans and Victor Roman, uh, in your thoughts, uh, as a deal, uh, during this, uh, with the loss of a loved one during this time, little time. We'll be back next week. As always, also, I say it all the time because I mean it and it's true and I'm sincere. Thank you to everybody in the chat room who joined us live. You know, I love it, it's great banter. We, you know, you probably see me put up a comment, I'm laughing as I put it up, some funny stuff. And if, even if you're not live and you're just one of those people download the show and after the fact, right, you're still giving of your time and affection to the show. And we appreciate that. So with that being said, thanks, Orlando. Thanks, Rex. Thanks everyone in chat and listening and we'll see you in seven days. Thank you for listening to this episode of Hobby Hotline. Just want to remind everyone we are a live show every Saturday morning, 11am Eastern, 8am Pacific on the four collectors channel on YouTube. That's the number four, the word collectors channel on YouTube. We hope to see many of you live on a future Saturday. We have a great interactive chat room and we always provide a link for anyone that wants to come on the show and chop it up with us. So that's a reminder every Saturday, 11am Eastern, 8am Pacific on the Four Collectors channel on YouTube. Hope to see you on the show. Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait. Lady Luck Ritzky. I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com they have all of my favorite games, slot games, live, blackjack craps and bubble craps. You can even get a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. 10 bucks for 30. I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now. Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This week at Safeway and Albertsons. 6 to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are 199 each limit 3 member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spareribs. Bone in Pro previously frozen are two 99 per pound limit four member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English cucumbers sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are $0.99 member price. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.