A Dive Into The Cards We Buy!! Surface Issues Episode 36

In our massive country, there are card collectors throughout the land participating in the hobby. There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero and Greg of Midlife Cards. And while distance may separate them, here is where they come together to talk cards. Hey, buddy, wait a second. You're not Mike. You have a full head of hair. You're handsome, you're intelligent. David Chase of Sports Cards Live and of the Midlife Card Chase. How are you, my friend? Hello, everybody. Welcome. Happy. Have a happy Sunday. I don't want. I don't want people to get too nervous that, that I've come in and taken over. Now that you have become part of the number one show on the Sports Car Clubhouse, I just figured we'd get rid of Mike and permanently replace him with you. Oh, I think that the fans are going to be very happy about that, Greg. I think that in all seriousness, Mike has got something going on today. And so I went to the bullpen, and when you look out in the bullpen and you've got Mariano Rivera, there's no need to. To look for someone else, right? I mean, so in you come again, David and myself, every other Saturday here on the Sports Card Clubhouse. You can check out our show, the Midlife Card Chase. Again, it's every other Saturday, but here we are on a Tuesday morning to talk about some cards together, and you have some big shoes to fill. I mean, Mike's got like 15,000 more subs than you do, but I think that you are the man for the job today. Thank you. I. I've been researching circus peanuts, and I am ready to go today, don't you worry. That's interesting because I brought my snack to have with my buddy here. The double stuff. The double Stuff. The only option of Oreos is the double stuff. And the golden are quite delicious. So I brought some of these to snack on while we have our conversation. Do you have a peanut butter cup ready to stick in the middle? I didn't do that today. I'm just going with just the golden double stuff. The double stuff. Oreo. Did I mention that they're double stuff? You did. You're going with the healthy version, which I appreciate. So what are we going to talk about? What a pro. Look at you. All right, so what should we talk with? What do we talk about? We talk about eye appeal. No one's ever talked about that before right now, Joe Perot, he said he's so your associate over at Sports Cars Live. He's not an associate. He's a friend. Oh, friend and associate. He. He said he's so tired of this topic. But there's a twist to the topic that we're going to be talking about today. And the twist, I think is worthy of a discussion. And we can start right there. I mean, we could just dive right into this. But when somebody says a card has a high eye appeal to you, what is it? What does that mean to you? David? I think that I have very different eye appeal standards as others and stuff in your face. I have definitely different eye appeal standards. For me, I cannot have high eye appeal without it being centered. I don't care if it looks like it was pack pulled. I don't care if it looks like the corners. You could cut a steak with it if it's not centered. To me, my version of eye appeal, it has to be very close to perfectly centered. And my centering, the care that I have for centering has become more and more aggressive in it needing to be better throughout the years that I've been collecting. Right now, I need it to be pretty perfect for me to give it the time of day. And when it's off a little bit, it bugs me. And I've gotten rid of a lot of cards that didn't have that centering. So that's number one for me is I needed to be centered. How about you, Greg? I gotta, I gotta dive in closer onto that because there are so many semantics within this. So what is your threshold like? I mean, from a 1 to a 10 on centering? Like my wife, thankfully, her threshold apparently was a two and a half. She was, she was, that was what she was willing to go down to. But is 5545, is that centered to you? Is that viable to you? Does it depend on the card? If 45, 55 for a Jim Brown rookie card is okay, but it's not okay for, you know, a 58 tops Mickey mantle. Like when you say it has to be centered, define that. Because I've seen, I've had times where friends and man, you see this card I got, it's just so well centered. I'm like, that card's not even close to centered. What are you talking about? So what's centered to you? It's card dependent. And part of what I love about I appeal for me is that the longer you're looking for a specific kind of card, the more you're going to know of what makes it as good eye appeal. And you know, for example, a 57 tops Mickey Mantle card is for some reason such a hard card to find centered. And for that card, you know, maybe it's okay to find that 55 45. Okay, but. Or like a Roberto Clemente rookie, that's another card that is just obnoxiously hard to find centered. Yeah. But if you're talking about a. Some cards that are still hard, but you can find them like a Sandy Koufax Rookie 55, same year, for some reason you can find more of those centered than the Clemente or a random card that's a 59 tops card. Then I need it to be perfectly centered. I need it to be like perfect perfect because there's a lot of them out there and you can be picky, unlike a car. My short print leaf cards that I love. Right. The Larry Dobie that I have, it's very nicely centered, but it's not perfect. I can handle that card not being perfectly centered. So it is card dependent. Okay. So that helps me. Now if you, if you do buy a card and you say, I think the centering is good enough for me, I think that I can handle this centering for this card. And then you get home and, and you, you're looking at it and you're like, ah, I don't know, like, it's starting to kind of bug me. Do. Is that something where you just keep the card? Do you just say that's it? If I'm even thinking about it, I sell it. Like, what's your move? When you try to convince yourself it's the right card and you're not sure what's that process look like? And we're just talking about centering right now, but there's many different layers that we're going to talk about for this for I appeal. But if that does happen to me, I know Mike Petty and I. He's the one who really has brought this up and it cracks me up where he's bought a card at a show and it's centered and then he brings it home and it's not. I don't know if it's the lighting or you're just excited at the time, but that totally happens. And it happens to me online sometimes too. And it depends on the card I've mo. I usually, if this was a couple of years ago, I would have kept that card until I found a better one and then let it go. But now that I'm more mature, I feel like it's okay for me to let the cards go because I will eventually find it. I don't need it to be the placeholder because if I look at that card every single time. And let's not even just talk about centering, but just eye appeal in general. If something about that card bugs me, I don't want to look at the card. And then that's the first thing I go to, right? I'm eccentric. I see that card and I see the flaw and it's the first thing that I see. And I want to love the card and love the attributes of the card and not only look at the flaw and if the flaw overtakes, goes and I don't have to have a new one to replace it, it's just part of the journey of me to find that card in a better situation. How about you? And if you decided you did want to sell that card, several of your cards or your whole collection, I would recommend reaching out to Chris. Se.se sportscards Gmail.com Such a, you know, Chris collector investor, dealer.com. collector investor, dealer. In that order. Chris is a great guy. Look at, he's all over the place on the screen there. He's. It's like he's in three places at once as he's sorting cards and listing cards and working to get your deal. So I can tell you this, Chris is a great guy. Even though a lot of the times on their podcast they tend to talk about junk wax Mike a little bit more. No worries. I am leveling the playing field this week by getting Mike off the screen altogether. Smart. So that you can only talk about me this week, Chris. So Chris is truly a great guy. Have you met Chris Sewell? No. Hopefully I'll meet him at the National, I think. Yeah, you'll have to meet him. You have obviously met the Texas Snowman, though. I love the Texas Snowman. He's been on Sport on Sports Cards Live and met him in Strongsville too. So again, Chris Sewell. Sewellsportscards gmail.com if you are looking to sell, consider Chris, again, a great guy, a sponsor of our channel. You can also find information about him on our website, the Sports Card Clubhouse under Partners Now. Yeah, I mean, I think that there was a time where I was more apprehensive to let go of a card than I am now. I mean, if there's a card that I'm trying to convince myself. No, you actually like it? I don't actually like it. It's like, you know, it's like the, the, the girlfriend, you know, in high school where you're like, I think I like her. You don't like her. You don't like her. Set her Free. Let her go like a baby bird, just out of the nest. Just shove her out of the nest, David. Let's talk about that, though. Right? So, so you're saying that you can now do that, but your Cy Young card that you just got rid of in Strongsville for the upgrade, you liked your other version, but you always knew you wanted a different one. You did not let that card go until you had the new one in hand. Right. That was a really nice PSA 1.5 Cy Young portrait that I bought at the national. I mean, what, 10 months ago, nine months ago? It was, it was a really nice example, but I do think that I always considered that to be a little bit of a placeholder card and with the hopes of finding a nicer one. I, I, I don't, I don't really believe in, in buying a card that you know you're going to sell. I, I only want to buy cards that if I didn't sell and if it was part of the permanent collection, it's good enough to be a part of the permanent collection. It's like the people who say, I'm gonna buy this house, I'll live in it for a couple of years, and then I'll get something that I actually like. Like, I would say, why are you doing that? All you're doing is losing a chunk in closing costs on both ends. And I don't know if that's the move. Like, if you can't see yourself in that house for seven years or more, at least five, like, why are you even buying it? And the card, it has to be the, the threshold for me is, if I never upgraded it, would it be okay? Now, that doesn't mean I'm not, I don't want to maybe upgrade it, but if I didn't upgrade it, is it a good enough copy? It has to. The answer has to be yes. Okay, so centering. Centering. You said centering. I want to hear, though, do you think the same way about centering? Is centering not as big of a deal for you? Is register. What's your number one criteria for I appeal for you? Okay, so we'll go straight to that. So your number one is centering by far. Okay, so, so when somebody says to, to somebody, I, I appeal because, again, you know, it, it's all in the eye of the beholder. It's, it's your eye appeal, and my eye appeal might not be the same. And that's one of the reasons that some of these eye appeal stickers to a certain Extent. You're kind of like, well, for your eye appeal, this is a good example. But. But maybe somebody else. It's different. So it is kind of a generic description of, you know, it's a. It looks better than the number is for it. And I'm not answering the question, so let me answer the question and then we're going back to that. Yeah. Okay. I would have. I would think that I would say it's centering, but it's not centering because I've seen a lot of really well centered cards with great color. And I go, oh, I see it at auction, or I see it in a case like, oh, let me look at that. And I get it closer and it's out of focus. I can't handle it. I cannot handle a card that has. See, it's. It's like, what's the kiss of death? Like, what's the. I think the. The term I was using when we kind of brought this topic up the other day was I called it the death penalty. Like, what's the death penalty for a card where. I just can't. I can't buy everything else. If you had a card that was perfect, corners, perfect centering, perfect color, perfect. Everything was perfect. But it was heavily out of focus and heavily out of registration. I don't want the card. Is there exceptions to that rule? I can't think of an exception. I'm. Okay, let's think of your number one goal card. Like, is the 52 mantle your number one goal card of, like, if money was no object, what's your number one goal card if money was no object? Wow, that's another. Honestly, you would think I would have that just bang. Yeah. No. Okay, I. I have to clarify. I have to clarify. We're all over the place right now. And, and which I think is fantastic. This is just organic. Like, we just had a very broad. You. You wanted this to be more of a precise conversation, but this, The. The branches of this conversation have so many branches that have branches that have branches. We'll go back to it. Yeah. If I. So you're basically saying if I could have any card, it's changed a little bit. I think this is going to surprise a lot of people. Blackbeard. I have that, though. Oh, yeah. Are we talking about cards? I don't have? Yes card. You don't have. What's the, like the ultimate goal card? Okay, so the thing. There are some cards that I want where any copy would do, but then there are some cards where the. Actually what I Want is a. Is a. A pretty decent copy of this. So you're basically saying I have, like, the T2O, the Wagner, right? Like, I mean, a card that's just, like, out of reach. That is your number one card that you would love to have someday that you most likely won't have. What is it, out of reach? Nothing's out of reach, David. You don't think the Wagner is out of reach for both of us? You never know. If you say never, then it's never. But anything. You've been hanging out with Mike Petty. That's a Mike Petty. No, no. Anything could happen. You don't know what the future holds. I wouldn't. I don't. Will I. Do I think I'll ever have a Wagner? Of course not. But you know what? The. The price of some of those Wagners that sold in the last three or four months, it's not impossible. The T206 Wagner you're talking about? Yeah, that's impossible. But I said a million dollars. You never know, dude. You never know. If I had put $10,000 into Nvidia 10 years ago, then I would have one, and. And I could have done that, but I didn't. So I don't like that line of thinking. That card. No card is off the table. All right? What's the stretch? Am I allowed to say it's a stretch? Is that okay to use that term? Cracker Jack Joe Jackson. Okay, the Cracker Jack Joe Jackson. So if you had a Cracker Jack Joe Jackson that was not in focus, would that. Could that be part of your collection? Let me ask you a question. Answer first, and then I'll answer your question. I will not. You can't answer my question. I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask you a question in response first. Would you rather annoying people that do that. Would you rather be married to the wrong woman who's nasty or be single? Oh, those are the two options. I'd rather be single, obviously. Right. So the right answer was, I don't have to worry about that because my wife Eve is amazing, and I'll never have to be single again. That was the right answer. Okay. But since you gave the wrong answer, the second answer that you could have given was, I'd rather be single. So would I rather have a. Just awful. And I mean awful. Out of focus. Copy that. Every time I look at it, it's hard to enjoy it or not have one. I think I'd rather not have one. I'd rather be single. Wow. Interesting. I'm not saying it's a horrible card. Okay. Except for the, except it looked like it was in 3D. Right. It was like two prints on top of each other, which I don't even think Cracker Jacks have that, but let's say it just was way out of focus. But everything else was nice about the card. Could that be part of your collection? Before I answer that. Oh my God. Before I answer that. Hold on. You know I have no patience, Greg. Give me one of those. And we need to come up with some kind of system where we could pass those off to each other. Greg quietly puts in double stuff Oreo in his mouth. I don't want the wrong copy of a card. There are a lot of cards that I'd like to have and I could have acquired the wrong copy and I chose to wait. Okay, so I'll say something that's a little different than what you said. My centering is everything to me. I, I, as weird as that sounds, and my number one card that's ahead of the 52 mantle for me is the 48 leaf short print satchel page card. And so if you saw that card, if it was way off centered, I would, I would love to have it even if it was off centered by, even if it was like an OC card. What if it was perfectly centered? Okay, it's perfectly centered card, but somebody had drawn a beard on it with devil horns. That card, I would take it in any condition. And I'll tell you that there's, and this is a little bit like that Joe Jackson card. There's just not many of them on the planet. Okay. So maybe it's a placeholder card, which I know you're saying is a weird thing to do, but I, I would love, I will own that card someday. It's just a card that is it really. I love leaf so much, and it is the pinnacle of leaf cards. So it really just, I would have it if there was a beard and devil horns. And I would think that it's actually a very funny copy. And it would probably be a copy that would represent, I mean, you could actually make that card where it could be so many episodes of discussions about that card. If it really did look like that, it'd be kind of cool to have the only one that was like such a mess that looked like that. So I'm just saying, as much as we care about eye appeal to bring it back to that. Yeah, there's exceptions to the rules. Right? What is the thing, what is the thing that people don't care. What are. What is something that a lot of people do care a lot about when they say I appeal, it has to have blank. And you think that's the most overrated thing with I appeal because you're saying the most important thing is centering. I'm saying I can't handle a card that's heavily out of registration. I can't. So. So I. Before I even get to that point, I want to say one quick thing about how I appeal is so different for everybody else, and nobody's right. Okay? Where I'm part of this website. I Appeal, Inc. Wait, you're a part of that? Oh, I'm a distinguished council member, Greg. Are you serious? Oh, yeah. Are you serious? Yeah, of course. I've been a. I've been from, like, day one. A council member from them. Greg. Interesting. All right, go ahead. Carry on. The Junk Wax is one, too. And Jeremy, I. Boy, Jeremy, too. I've heard. Yeah. You know what? If you want to, you can fill out. I'm good. I'm good, I'm good. All right, so. But the thing about that website that's interesting, I'm like, one of the easiest graders on there, okay? People love it when I grade their card because I am not just. Some of these people take their job way too seriously, and they nitpick the hell out of those cards. And it bugs me because a card that looks great, they don't have to tear it apart because they're looking at it for 17 minutes to try to find the flaw. That's not what I appeal is to me, okay? And what I appeal is to me, and I differ, okay? There are cards that. When I've posted a card and you can't see who the person is who posted it, Jeremy Lee gave me the lowest rating of anybody on that card. One of them is like my Willie Mays. I have a 51 Bowman Willie Maze card. And. And it's because he cares so much about registration. Fish eyes. That's it. That's my card. And if you were to see it a little closer, there's a fisheye next to his production. That is very impressive how you pulled that out. It has a fish eye next to his hat. The corners are very worn, but it is centered, right? So to me, I like this card. It does have high eye appeal, but, man, it made me feel kind of bad when I put it onto the I Appeal website because they tore it apart. And I think Jeremy even gave it like, a C, like a. Like a very low grade. And to me, it was a little surprising and shocking, but that really shows that I appeal is different for everybody. And you have to really understand what is more important than others. I am somebody who does not care as much about the back of cards as others. Right. I think that it's kind of weird where when I look at a card, I am looking at the front for 90% of the time there's another one of mine. And then I look at the back just to see is that the reason for the lower grade. Okay. I Love this card, this 49 Bowman satchel page card. The front of it looks like a seven, right? And the back of it has a. That is a glue stain that you cannot miss it. Right. But at the same time, it is a glue stain. It is a terrible glue stain. And obviously in a perfect world, I would love for me not to see the stain on the back or the paper loss in the back. That's the ultimate goal, to have a card that you cannot figure out why it's a one. Right? But for you, for me to be able to afford a card, I. There's so many cards that I want. I need them to be in lower grades. I can't afford high graded cards, but I can afford sometimes a nice looking version of a lower grade card. So I have to give some characteristics of up. Right. Does that mean that it might have a glue stain on the back or does it mean that there might be a number written on the back that somebody writes in there or a Mookie pinhole? Sometimes those kind of things happen. Here's. Here's another example where this is actually kind of funny. When I ended up getting this. This we're showing right now a 52 bowman mantle. The front of it is spectacular. And there is a stamp on the back. This shows I didn't have enough research on this card. When I even bought this card years ago, I didn't even know that that TW wasn't part of the card, as dumb as that makes me sound. But then I realized that it was a child, most likely a child stamp to let them know that that is that person. I think you bought it from Tom Watson. There's a. It probably was Tom Watson, little Tommy Watson. And he loved this card enough to have it and I learned to appreciate it. And you know what? For me to try to find a card that looks like that on the front that doesn't have that TW I mean, that card's going to be five times the amount of money for that card. Literally five times the amount of money. So you know what? I have to be able to give up some items. Now some people would say that's not I appeal because they consider the back to be part of eye appeal. What, what's your thought on the back versus the front? For me the back matters more than it does for a lot of you guys. A lot of the I appeal guys almost want the back to be beat up because then they can get a really nice front for a cheap price because the back brings it down so much. So I, I care about the back more. I care about baby got back. Why, why do you care about the back so much? What's the reason back? I, I don't, I don't know. I can't. Why do I care what the back is all about? How often do you read the back of a card? Most times that I look at my cards I look at the front for 80% of the time, in the back for 20% and I think that's how most people are. When Jeremy does a fanatics live and he studies a card and he dissects it, he's looking at the front then he's like let's just see the back and he's really looking at the back to see if that prevent that made the grade lower. So because you're looking at it 80% of the time. Why, what makes it important to you to have that back looking so nice? I, I mean, I mean the back of the card, it, it matters. It's, it's part of the card, it's part of the story, it's part of the production. If the back didn't matter, they'd all be blank backs but the back isn't blank. The back has, has something on it for a reason. And I also think this might sound, this is probably going to sound crazy and if we're, we're way off course now, I'm okay with that. But I, I, I like not really knowing the story of a card. I like wondering what is the card story? Who is tw that adds to it. When a card is like this one, I know the story of that card. That card was glued into some sort of album or scrapbook and then the glue dried and it, it came loose and out it came. And that's one of the reasons that the front looks so good. I, I feel like it's too big of a clue maybe. I, I like not knowing what's going on but so you wouldn't want to know if you had a grail because they figured this Card. Hold on. They disfigured the card. Somebody. Somebody applied like that. Somebody applied a substance to this card. Like, that's so, like, not what. That's so out of bounds. Like, you don't put chemicals on cards. You don't put stickers on cards. Now, I, I love Mookie's whole thing about if a card is a pinhole, that means that card was prized and they wanted it displayed that I, I was always very, very anti pinhole. Pinhole was almost the least acceptable thing. But then when he helped me to frame it in that way, it has changed my opinion on pinhole cards. That said, I have zero cards with pinholes other than the ones right there that were given to me from Mookie. I've never bought a card with a pinhole ever. Would you? Would you? I'm more willing now than I would have been. But there are a lot of other things I would rather be wrong before the pinhole be wrong. So I just want to mention, when you mentioned chemicals and things like that, I think a pinhole and having back damage, the way that those cards had back damage that you showed are very similar, right? Because it's not based on somebody altering the card to alter it into a state to make it look better. It was altering it for the state of loving the card, right? You put it into a book, it brings the story that you hate. You hate the story. I know that, but, like, it's a story. I know, but I, you know that you mentioned it, but, you know, you, you know, you can put the pinhole and put it on a tack board for you to love the card, you can put in a scrapbook because you want to look at it as much as you can. You are doing something to the card because of love, not because you're trying to clean it or anything like that, or you put a stamp on it because you don't want your buddy to steal it. Because that's my card as a kid, right? So I agree, you are defacing it. But this is the thing with eye appeal and lower grade cards, you have to give, right? Of course, we would love to have cards that are perfect, right? We would want them to all be tens in a perfect world, or at least to look like tens. So, Greg, if you. If you will not give up the back, you will not do a pinhole. What will you give up on for you to get a good eye appeal card besides rounded corners? Everybody's okay with rounded corners. What else can make a very. Your gouty, Ruth? That I know is on your list. You know that if that's a three, that's a cute. You know why you're cute? Because this is the question I asked you 15 minutes ago. What is the most overrated eye of item? What is the thing that matters? I asked you that 15 minutes ago. And then you went, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you came back and you said, so, Greg, I've got this really good question. What matters the least? And I'm like, bro, are you serious right now? Okay, fine. Answer your own question. Greg. Listen, it's a brilliant question. It's an absolutely brilliant question, David. God, kill me. All right, do you want me to answer it first or do you want to answer it first? I would love to hear your answer to this, King Greg. So we're saying that corners are out because we've all, A lot of us are okay with rounded corners. So I guess what we have to do then is we have to kind of talk through what are the other things. Like, there's centering, right? There's back damage. There are wrinkles and creases. There's color issues. There are what? Registration, registration, registration. Back off centering, which I'm sure both of us. Yeah, I, I'm okay with it. I know you love your back. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with facts being off center. Oh, interesting. So of those ones are we. I mean, of those ones, what is the thing I could live with the most I could live with? Again, of course, we all want everything to be nice. Of course you have to give. So let me put a card on the screen which is another card from your collection. And I don't want. I want to talk through this. This back damage, this is a beautiful 41 play ball, Ted Williams. It's got good registration, it's got good centering. It's got corners, honest corners. It's got. I would, I would say average to average plus color. There's. It's maybe a little dulled color, maybe. But right here on the card, there is a little bit of a paper loss, and then at the bottom left, there's a little bit of a paper loss. So when we talk about back damage, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty good with this. Like this. This is a card I could get on board with. Versus. Yeah, versus. You know, and even we didn't talk about this. On the Willie Mays, there is a little bit of wax staining. On the Willie Mays, on the back wax, if anything, to be honest, with you, that might be my answer. I, I don't. I don't dislike wax staining. I wouldn't say I like it, but it bothers me. 0 and part of it is because it, It's. It's one of the easier things to get rid of. It's one of the easier things that some of these card care kits can remove the easiest. And so it tells me they didn't. This hasn't been through any sort of treatment. And so that foreign substance, Mr. Foreign Substance on my cards, I don't like. Isn't that exactly a foreign substance? To me, the foreign substance is anything that goes onto a card after it has been removed from the vessel in which it is distributed. So is fine for you, then? I mean, the, the gum just like this. It depends on how intrusive the gum stain is. There's some of the gum and some of like, the early 80s where it, like, would literally, like, burn the card and it would, it would like. It would like. It was pretty bad. But assuming we're talking about opening a card from 1980 that was printed in 1980, then a gum stain or a gum residue wouldn't bother me much now, especially if it's on the back. And that's where wax isn't always. When it's on the front, it usually isn't there. But wax doesn't bug me. On this card. On this. On this card. This wax bothers me. 00. Does the fisheye bother you? Yes. The fisheye card be allowed in your collection, or would. Would you be waiting for a different copy? I would rather talk about hypothetical cards than cards that my friends own. Specifically. I own the card and I take zero offense. I promise. The. The thing about this card that bugs me the most is the fisheye. Yeah, this. This fisheye. I struggle with that fisheye. Not all fish eyes bug me, but that. But this fisheye, where it's at, it almost looks like he's looking at it. It bugs me a little bit. I love the centering. I love the color. There's a little bit of. A little bit of snowing that doesn't bother me. The wax on the back doesn't bother me. The only part, the little crease down here on the corner. No problem. The. The. Oh. The biggest issue I have with this card is the fisheye, and I want to mention something about that, so. And by the way, I agree with you. Right. And here's the thing, though. You know, this was a card that was on my list for a very long time. I really wanted a 51 bowman willie mays card. And man, this card is obnoxious to find centered in low grade. You can sometimes find them like I feel like the minimum is like that, that sweet spot of like a four. You can find them. But man, that's a really expensive card. And to find it in a two that's centered was. I mean I looked at a lot, a lot of copies. So this was one that I bought that I. I had to give. Right. But yeah, to be honest with you, this card is still on my list when I'm looking at cards. It's still on my auction wire list, it's still on my ebay list because I. There is room for improvement on it. And that's the coolest thing about eye appeal is that just because you have a version of it, because vintage cards are so different from each other, it's okay to. I'm happy to have this in my collection. It's not one that I need to get rid of, but if I find a better one, I will happily kick it to the curb. Okay, let's do an a real life comparison. This or that. Okay. Would you. Would you rather this card have that fisheye right there or would you rather that card have this damage to Ted William like that Ted Williams has on the back there? If I could have all my cards like the Ted Williams damage on the back, I would have every single card like that. So the fisheye bugs you more than this little piece of back damage on the Ted Williams. Surface issues. Heyo. Like how I worked that in. Surface issues on the front of a card is my second most important attribute. But you can see that sometimes I can give on it a little bit for a specific kind of card. If it's just a tough one to find or an expensive one where it's as good as I can find at the moment. Right now that Ted Williams. I would love for all of my cards to look like that. A tiny bit of back damage looking great as a front doesn't have to have sharp corners. It can be. It can have some toning and things like that, but a good photo, very well centered. That's my goal, to find every card like that. It would be very tough for me to upgrade that Williams that is not on my list of cards that I'm still looking at now. If one hit me in the face that looked like that, but it was sharp corners and had that same tiny bit of back damage, I kicked that one to the curb too. Because I love cards. I don't have to only love my version of the card. That's the fun thing about eye appeal is that no two cards are the same. And I'm always trying to find a low grade high one that I love the. Look at it more than, more than the one that I currently have. I love what you're saying right now. And we still haven't asked the question that I asked. And then 15 minutes later you asked. But I, you're. I want to back up on something real quick. I'm going to look back at this, this Ted Williams. Okay. You said if you had the card exactly like this, but it had super sharp corners, that you would, you would step up and get that card. Is that what you said? I would. I am a person who, when we're talking about pre war cards, which this is, you know, probably pre, I mean, this, this is pre war. I would say I, I don't want, I don't want my corner sharp. I, I don't think it looks real when it's sharp. When it's a card that is. I mean, this card is 85 years old. Like to me, if it had sharp corners, it wouldn't, it wouldn't feel like it actually lived. It would, it would, it would be like a card. It would be like a card that was in a tomb, like, like it is now in this, you know, PSA tomb. I like a card that's old to look old, but it has to look old in the areas I'm okay with it looking old. And I think that that's the whole, the whole conversation that we're having right now. In a nutshell, the whole conversation is everything in this hobby. Everything in the hob. This is what makes the hobby great. Everything in the hobby is subjective. Is that Ted Williams a cool card? Depends on who you ask. Is Ted Williams a guy worth collecting? Depends on who you ask. Does that card deserve a one? Depends on who you ask. Is centering better than color, which is better than surface, which is better than registration? Depends on who you ask. That's the part about this whole thing that is actually fun. And when people come through with these dogmatic statements that say things like, if you think this, you're an idiot. Like, you can't make those statements in this hobby. You can't make this empirical statement in this hobby about anything. There are cards that I love that other people hate and vice versa, and that's what makes it great. And the fact that we could sit here and blab for 44 consecutive minutes about centering matters more than registration, which matters more than back damage, which matters more than fisheyes. And we could disagree with it, but you and I, in two months, two and a half months, will be in Chicago in this giant room, and we'll be walking around together looking at cards together, and you're gonna buy cards that I wouldn't want, and I'm gonna buy cards that you wouldn't want, and you're gonna say, look at my card. I'm gonna go, that's awesome, bud. And you're gonna show me your card. And I'm saying, that's awesome, bud. And even though it may not be what I want, I appreciate that it is exactly what you want. You know, the reason the I appeal conversation won't go away is because it's not empirical. It's. It's not finite. It's not right and wrong. It's. It's like saying, what should the. The Yankees do over the off season to improve the team? It could be changing coaches, it could be changing getting rid of players, adding new players. It could be an infinite number of things. That's the best part. So I don't see this conversation going away. And we. We had, like, we had a couple of brief talks before this about how do we talk about this topic. And it's like, it's such a complicated topic that you can't have an agenda when you talk about it because there are so many varieties of places that it could go. And this is what's fun. Like, to me, we. For the last 46 minutes, I've had a freaking hoot of a time talking. We have a better co host this time. You know, I mean, you lucked out this year, this week. But I want to mention one more thing that we didn't talk about for this eye appeal thing, which I agree with everything you just said. That was a great way to sum it up. And I probably shouldn't say anything, anything else, but when people sometimes on. Wait, one sec, one sec, one sec. Oh, God. Go for it. What number is this, by the way? He just. He just shoved another cookie in his mouth. Possibly two at the same time. All right, so here's only one. People get upset when we talk about eye appeal because they're say, even though it's always been around that no one's trying to dispute that because of prices increasing based on it, and they think it's bad for the hobby. And that's the thing I just want to address. And by the way, you can feel that way. Okay. It's okay. I will still be everybody's friend that feels that way. It's okay. I would rather everybody not collect the way I do. It brings up the price of the cards that I'm collecting. So, like, I'm not trying to convince anybody that this is the right way. This is just my version of it. Okay. And the thing is, is that part of this journey and for you to be. If you are looking for a card and you are looking for a week and you find that card, it's great. But if you are looking for a card for years and trying to find the right copy, that's a lower grade of one that you can afford. And it finally comes up the way that my 48 leaf Jackie and a one came up, which is kind of how a lot of this conversation started for me. Back in the day, I was looking for that card forever. And that was for me a one of one card. And that's the reason why it went for the highest price ever and should have even gone for more, even though I know that 99% of people think that that's psychotic. And it is psychotic for most people. But for a specialized amount of people who are looking for a card for a long period of time that cannot afford a four and they finally find it in a one or a two that is exceptional and one that is unlike what even a six looks like, they're going to pay more and they're going to be happy to pay more because they've been looking for that card forever. And that's the difference between a card that has good eye appeal and spectacular eye appeal. And there's a very big difference between those two. And I'm not even saying that Ted Williams is spectacular eye appeal, but it would be higher than probably the highest comp one if it were to sell today at an auction. And that makes sense because try to find another one that has a front that looks like that that has been sold over the last two years. It'll be very tough to find. And that's the reason why it doesn't have to. We don't have to agree with the reasoning for it, but just know there's weirdos like me that believe that. And that's why we're willing to pay that one and a half price because we can't afford the three and it's as nice as we can get a card to look like. I've. Well said. And I have one. I have one closing question for you. And with that, after that your response, we'll go ahead and close this out. What has been a fantastic episode of surface issues. If I don't. Probably the best one. I would say this is probably the best surface. I mean, it's clearly the best one. My question to you is this. And if. If you were to list a million questions that you think I'm going to ask you, I can promise you that the question I'm about to ask you is not in the first million guesses. It's not about food. It's not about food. Oh, wow. Okay. Do you hate bark? Bark? Bark. Are you talking about a tree or the kind of root beer? What are you. I'm talking about bark. Like bark ground cover at a house. Do you hate bark? Crap. I don't even think. I mean, I might. Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't even think I know what that is. I know bark on a tree. What's bark that you put on the homes? What they'll do is they'll take bark like that, like shredded mulch from wood, and they'll spread it instead of like, rock as. Like. Got it. Ground cover pieces, like at a playground. Like wood pieces. Like wood chips? Kind of. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's the worst. It's the worst. You don't like bark. See, because bark costs people a lot of money. See, what people do is if you go and you buy a house and there's fresh ground cover, like bark, then the house will sell for more because it just looks fresher and cleaner and it looks better. And so what a lot of people will do before they sell their house is they'll go get fresh bark. They'll buy some fertilizer. They'll put it on the lawn to make the lawn greener. And then you pull up to the house and you go, look at this. Such a nice curb appeal. Curb appeal. Eye appeal for houses. Curb appeal for this house. And then they immediately like the house and they pay more money for the house. So when people go and spend 150 on 5 yards of bark, what they're actually doing is getting an extra $25,000 for the house. That's exactly the same thing as these eye appeal stickers. I'm telling you, it's these eye appeal stickers, these eye appeal movement. It's putting lipstick on the same item. And to me, bark freshens it up and it makes it look a little bit more attractive. And I'm not mad at bark about that. I'm not mad at bark because they make house prices sell for more. To me, it's still the same House, it's still the same card. And what you like in a house and what I like in a house and what you like in a card and what I like in a card are going to be different things. And we have to focus on the things that we like instead of worrying about the things that other people like. If there's anything that we have accomplished in the last 52 minutes, in my humble opinion, it's that we have fully agreed that it is okay and normal to have different preferences in what matters and in what doesn't matter in cards. And when you hear the term eye appeal, it is not a universal, finite definition. People have said, what does eye appeal mean to you? It's going to mean something different to me, to you, to, to Dylan, to Jeremy, to Junk Wax, Mike, to whoever. It's going to be different. And again, that's why it's fun. It would be so boring if we all like the same five cards and they all looked exactly the same. It would not be fun. Man, what a pro you are. This. This episode should just go straight to the YouTube hall of Fame for next year's voting, right? I don't know. What? I don't know anything about the YouTube hall of Fame, buddy. I'm just saying. I mean, listen to that speech that you just gave right there. I've never heard a better speech in my entire life. Cut that up. That used to go on your tick tock. That was brilliant, my friend. That couldn't be better than that. You know how I'm gonna reward myself with another Oreo? With a food pellet in the form of a Double stuff Golden Oreo. Let me see it. Show it to the camera. Let me see this Double stuff Oreo. Now on our show, make sure to twist it. And when our show. When at the end of our show, you usually sing us out. Yeah. Do I Now, now, now, as far as I'm concerned, being the new permanent guest of Surface Issues, I feel like we should probably have you sing us out. Would you like to do that? You know what? Give the. Give the fans what they want, right? I'm all about it. All right. Do you have anything? I mean, you just ended with the most epic speech. I feel like it's sad to even say anything after that, but. No, man, that was amazing. All right. By the way, love, Greg Junk Wax. Even though you big timed me, thank you for allowing me to be on your show, I still haven't received the apology. Even though you started texting me, I'm still waiting on that. And I don't want an apology to my text. I want it to be to. To the world, to the masses. Okay. When it eventually does happen. All right. And by the way, I do love him. He's actually a great guy. Okay, let's end it. Hey, we have a new sponsor on our channel, so this is going to be a. I used to love ska and punk music when I was in high school. I was one of those nerds. And this is a song that I loved back in the day, and it went a little something like this. Sell out with me? Oh, yeah? Sell out with me tonight? The record company is going to give me lots of money and everything's gonna be all right?