1582 - Out-Takes from Hobby Hotline 082226

Foreign. Doctor James Beckett Sports Card Insights Another outtake episode from Hobby Hotline from last Saturday on with Rich Klein and John Newman, a wide range of topics Active involvement from the chat. Thanks Sponsors Topps Panini Upper Deck Heritage Auctions, Hugs and Scott Auctions, Mike Stadium Sports cards, Burbank sports cards comp c.com and Beckett Media, Beckett Grading Beckett Authentications. Watch the show and you could see the talking heads and you could have your own comments in there and suggest topics. So this was fun again and I took a little bit out of each of the segments that we did. So thanks everybody. And here it is. There's no roadmap. You can clearly see where things are going when people say, oh, they're just pumping it. People have been pumping things since the beginning of time. There is an art. You gotta successfully pump it. And now the tools for pumping are enhanced. People have been pumping soccer for many years. So when the right people pump something, sometimes it catches on, along with the fact that other things seem more expensive. It makes these things look cheap. And they're not cheap now. They look expensive. People are going to be thinking of what's next. And already people are saying, if that's what Luke Skywalker goes for, what about Princess Leia? What about Darth Vader? There's a hierarchy of stars and icons in every enterprise. If you just get on that bandwagon and see where it's going, it looks like we're going to be able to ride that for a while. But don't think it's a forever ride when we talk about the Mark Hamill card. Star wars next year is the 50th anniversary. Even if there is a correction, Star wars probably will not correct for a couple years because the hype around the 50th anniversary. I'm not talking about cards. I'm just talking about the general hype with a 50th anniversary will bring back as many people who are still with us who made the Star wars movie and all did another round of publicity. Mark Hamill is still with us. It will go south. Harrison Ford is still with us. George Lucas is still with us. He'll get another round of publicity. Speaking statically, forget the grave for a second. That was just a nicely designed attractive card of Mark Hamill skipping anything else about that specific card. And attractiveness means something in a card. It's why, among other reasons, Topps in baseball is a lot more popular than Topps. Rich makes an excellent point. But we know from preseason basketball, preseason football, preseason baseball purchases that you want to buy Star wars cards on the 49th year before the 50th anniversary. At the 50th anniversary, yes, there'll be more interest, but the smart people are already getting in. Now this might be like NFL quarterbacks. You want to be the highest paid quarterback. Timing is everything. And so now when Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker has set this, the next one up, if it's Princess Leia or Darth Vader, for sure, there's a pecking order and there could be some leapfrogging. Just because there's a lot more attention to this and you have a baseline. It's like NFL quarterbacks. I want to be the highest paid guy. So you've got to be negotiating your contract at the right time saying, I want more than the last guy. The question is, is it Mark Hamill or is it Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader is in a costume and Chewbacca is unrecognizable. And so if you can see the. And what if Mark Hamill had some other card? Forget about the naysayers. Enough people are going to say, that's a special card. It's the first appearance. First appearances are a big deal in comic books. They're a big deal in sports cards. They're going to be a big deal in non sports. When we talked about Spider man earlier, the first appearance of Spider man was a big deal in the comic world. When I was in high school, we knew it was a big deal. It's certainly gotten no smaller than 50 years since then. The problem I have is when you have voice talent signing cards. Is that a rookie card? When they're voicing a character, they're not the character, except they're the voice of the character. But if you're really a big fan of that genre, then you're probably going to get that too. The Most advanced collectors 50 years ago were collecting TTO6s. Six is only a set because Jefferson Burdick said it was. Before Jefferson Burdick was out there, people did collect a lot by the backs because they were almost like separate sets. They were separate tobacco companies, but they were all the same fronts. And so it's only the most advanced collectors care about the backs. And Peabody, I don't think is that rare of a back, but it's rare on the Wagner. Every Wagner is rare. So I don't think that adds a lot more value. It's more by grade than by back. I don't know if this is the same one that was auctioned about 1976, just before I started really following the hobby. But I remember it was a big thing on the Trader Speaks, which was the voice of the hobby in those days. How the Wagner got sold for, I think, $3,976. Could you imagine if that's the same card? That's a pretty good ROI, from $4,000 to $6,000,000. It's a Wagner, it's legit, and it's certainly very difficult of a card. And who's willing to complain that the card is trimmed when there's only three known? We've seen some Wagners come to the auction block in recent months. Obviously, what's out there is out there. But you think we're going to see more people, maybe turn and burn these, maybe buy it in 20, 26, wait a year, and then put it back out there and try to make money on what they paid. John, it's not abnormal psychology, but it's not normal people psychology. You have to have a willing seller that's going to put it up and a willing buyer that's going to pay the big bucks. And so when the price keeps going up, it pulls out from collections. I don't think these are flippers. For the most part. Most of the Wagners are in homes, and when they are released, it could be because of personal circumstances or health reasons. Normally, anybody who has that much money to buy that card, they're not in the need to flip it. I'll give you a hot take. The famed Wagner PSA8 card that we know because it's been admitted in federal court, was trimmed and it's a PSAA card. That card had a book written about it. I'll wager that card, if it went for sale, would go between 25 and $30 million, because it's still the most attractive example of that card out there. It just feels like we started to see more for sale on auction blocks, obviously, for obvious reasons. Right. They're going to bring serious money, like Dr. Ginsett. Maybe there's a situation where someone's older, they have a health issue or they need to cash out. Maybe they got in really cheap and now's the time to, hey, I'm in my 60s, 70s or older, I'm not going to leave my family. Really don't care about that as much as the money would help my family. Maybe it's as simple as that, maybe it's not. These are not common man questions. They're not things people aspired to. It's really the original grail in Our industry. And it's because it was so tough. Because the original grail from 2000 years ago was one thing, one thing that actually never was found or could be authenticated and found, whatever. So this is very scarce. It's beyond the means of 99.999% of the people. So to have more than one, is that the definition of a hoarder? What do you think? Listen, I would love to have one, but if I had two, I would only have one because I definitely wouldn't keep two. I would move one for sure. But like Dan pointed out. Dan lynch, there's been four on the auction block this year in 2026, to my knowledge. Your record for most in one calendar year to hit the marketplace, if you will. History is a great teacher. I always tell the story the when the 352 tops mantle sold at $3,100 each at the Willow Grove show in March of 1980 to R& B coins at a public auction, everybody thought they had lost their mind spending $9,000 on those three cards. The next issue of the Trader Speech, which came out after you could put that card for sale or auction in the magazine, there were 1752 tops mantles in that next issue. That was a lot in those days. I think some people thought cashing in at that point would be good. But as I pointed out, you're now at a different level where the people who want to cash out don't necessarily need. If you can afford to spend millions on a card, you don't always need to cash out. No, but actually an indicator the market has Beckett If we saw 10 wagners this year or 12 being offered for sale, that would be danger. Will Robinson, that would be. We have hit the peak because all these great cards are coming out. There needs to be an equilibrium. Four Wagners means four people thought, I'm going to take my profits now. Beware of all these huge cards come out all at once. Like Rich said 46 years ago, the market plummeted because that equilibrium was lost. So four Wagners in a huge bull market, highest prices for everything is not earth shaking to me. It's predictable. I'm worried if there's even more. If the season ended today, Jordan Alvarez will be your Triple Crown winner. The first since Miguel Cabrera. And it was 20 years since the last one before him. Jordan Alvarez, he's not like new to the scene. He's had some good years. He doesn't get a ton of hobby love. When we compare him to some other current players like Bobby Wood Jr. But you can make an argument he's a better player, at least in the moment. If he winds up winning the Triple Crown, guys, it is a big deal. But is it going to be a big hobby deal? I don't want him to one-of-one it because if he wins it, that means the Astros one-of-one the division. I want the Rangers to pull up and pass up the Astros. And Jordan Alvarez is a problem. So not that he has to go on a cold streak, but he's got people nipping at him in every category. He had a bigger lead a month ago. It's a long season. That's why it's so tough. And if it was in the other league, he wouldn't even be leading some of the categories. I was a Yankees and Astros fan growing up and now living in the Dallas area. I'm kind of conflicted since the Astros and Rangers are in the same division. So it does make it hard. So part of me is rooting just on a historical level for him to one-of-one the Triple Crown. And as Jim says, part of me is like thinking, oh, the Rangers, on the other hand, I looked up the standings this morning. We still have a legitimate shot of the AL west champion winning the division with a sub.500 record. There is that to root for too. I do notice that using the Beckett LPG and going through my cards, there are plus arrows on the OPG of just about every word in Alphabet card. He's getting some more interest. He doesn't really have one card to really get the interest around for that one card. But there's enough rookie cards out there where you can still buy them reasonably priced. I think that'll help too. Miguel Cabrera, really, his best card was the 2000 tops traded autograph card, which is his rookie card year. I don't know if Yordan has any cards like that either. And that does depress the market a bit. We're begging on Yordon for leading the league with just a.318 average. I think the days of guys like Don Manely and Tony Gwynn and George Brett were the batting in the.350s and 360s. I think those days are over. We don't have those kind of hitters, at least currently anymore. I think the three 20s, 330 would be remarkable in today's game. Pitchers throwing harder, if that's the issue, why the contact rate went down. But I just think 318, a lot of players would take that and I think around 300 will put you in the mix. For a batting title, whether you one-of-one it or close. So I think that's where we are. It's worse than that. You one-of-one batting titles and you're still expendable. Look at Luis Arias. He's on his third or fourth team and he's winning a batting title. But the powers that be have determined that it does not contribute as much to winning as hitting home runs and hitting for power and a strikeout. At least you didn't hit it to a double play. Otherwise they consider three true outcomes. Home runs, strikeouts and walks. Everything else is almost irrelevant nowadays. That is part of what happened with the Moneyball effect. Pitchers are throwing harder today too. It's harder to hit a 98 mile an hour fastball than it is a 92 or 93 mile an hour fastball. One other thing. Batters nowadays see far more pitchers in their career than they used to. And I do not remember the exact numbers. So I'm going to do this in a generalization. Lou Gehrig faced 325 pitchers in his career and granted he only played in the American League. Anthony McCutcheon faced 1,325 pitchers in his career. You have a familiarity when you face a pitcher a lot. You don't have that same familiarity when they just keep throwing arms at you. Because every pitcher has subtle little differences. And don't think that's not an important difference for people with batting average. Pitchers aren't pitching complete games. That's a rarity in today's game. Get me five innings and then we'll get into our middle relief. And then if we're winning and it's close, will get in the closer. Starting. Pitchers aren't facing hitters more than twice in the same game. They're just seeing a plethora of pitchers. Probably more so in today's game. I remember Nolan Ryan would pitch 11 innings. If the game went into extra innings, he'd have upwards to 150, 160 pitches thrown. Those days are obviously over. Guys throw harder. It's a different game. We may have seen our last 300 game winner. You had 300 today. In my opinion that's a good average and it's probably going to put you in the mix for a baddie title. But it doesn't guarantee it one-of-one be moved three or four times in a five year period. Like Lewis arise and great hitter. So I don't know if there's something maybe in the locker room with him that he just can't stay on one team very long. Not that valuable. Just getting a hit of 32 times out of 100 instead of 29 times out of 100. It's not enough of a difference without the slugging. For pitchers, they've got the same metrics. But 50 years ago, if you led the league in ERA. Okay, so you don't give up a lot of runs. You led the league in strikeouts. Yu-Gi-Oh You struck out a lot of people. You had to lead the league in wins for Cy Young. Driving distance. Is the national ever coming back? If it comes back, then that is not a good sign. That means we Beckett in 2026 or 2027. The IX center was demonstrated at our event to not be a sufficient place for a big B2C kind of a show. The insides were great, but the logistics of having a huge crowd. It one-of-one work unless we're projecting to have 50,000 people instead of 150,000 people in 2029. The IX center is not going to be it. You could have another show there, but it one-of-one be the National.