Should Restored Cards Be Celebrated? + Could This Wagner End Secret Card Doctoring?

Hi friends, it's Dan Wilbur and Zach Sims and we're the hosts of My New Thing, a comedy podcast about obsessions. It's a show where we talk to comedians about their niche hobbies and their pop culture fixations. Everything from graffiti to 70s cinema and really anything in between. It's called My New Thing. Get it wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Jordan Sports cards is a lifesty Sports cards and we live now Jeremy Lee in the building and every guess that you ever needed Sports cards after hours keep the hobby heated Updates homie Talk like you never seen it Sports Cards live and I could ever beat it Sports cards is a lifestyle Sports cards and we live now. Welcome to another episode of Sports Cards Live with your host, Jeremy Lee. And how did Al even get here? Well, we were talking about his card last night and he was watching as he watches and, and reached out and we ended up on the phone for two hours the other night after a show talking about the card and the history behind it. And so yeah, I mean, listen, I'm very interested in this card out like as an observer, as a hobbyist, as someone who loves cards. But I will come back to this and this is so important. I just hope that people listening and watching can understand this. Regardless of how you feel about, about any card that has been worked on, there's the biggest thing that I think that we need to consider is the transparency of the work. That's really what matters. That and, but there's another level that this card achieves that many don't. There are there, there can be people altering cards and being transparent about it, but making the card look exactly like it was supposed to look like originally. When that happens, as soon as that story gets lost by that person dying or forgetting, that story can be lost as well. This Wagner, the story will never be lost. There's nobody who's going to buy this thinking it's the real thing ever. I can't think of a plausible way that could happen unless it was deconstructed and reconstructed with an original Wagner back or at least or made with a car with materials that are made to look like that. But I mean that's pretty far fetched. I don't know, maybe it'll happen, but if it does, you have images on your website, Al, that show almost like some fingerprint sort of details of this, of the silhouetted piece. And to me that's a great service, a great piece of documentation that you've added to the record of this card's history. So I, this is my favorite card. This is not. This is my favorite card to watch at auction almost ever. And we've watched. I've watched. I mean, I make a living watching cards at auction, guys. That's what I do, you know, in a. So I can't wait. Sorry, Al. Go ahead. It's gonna be a lot of fun. And, and you know, I, I mean, obviously, you know, I'm a basket case about it because, you know, I want it to do well. And, and you know, I think, think that it's got. I, I think that its sale and what it sells for. I agree with you. It's going to potentially set a precedent. And the precedent that I'm hoping that it sets is that if you're going to do something to a card, being open and honest about it and showing it is still going to yield a good sale. And, and you don't have to trim it and then hide that, sneak it by a grading company, you, you can actually have good professional work done. Now there's. I know you told me not to look at the comments and I'm looking at the comments. There is something that I want to address because I've seen it come up a couple of times and, and guys, this is not. Somebody glued a silhouette of a Wagner onto another car. That's not what this is. This is a very sophisticated restoration, even by today's standards. I'm sure that today they could do a lot more than they did in the 90s. But, but this, this Wagner is not glued on top. There's. The card was actually. It's kind of sandwiched in between the front and the back and then in painted around. So it's stitched in there. It's part of the card. When, when you run your finger around the silhouette of the Wagner, you can feel what is the inpainting a tiny bit. It's smooth and your finger can hear. Because remember I had this card when it was ungraded. So you know, you can, you can kind of feel what is the. In painting that that goes around the silhouette. It's, it's. This is not a card that was slapped onto another card. That's not what it says. That's all. I just wanted to address that. Yeah, no, that's. That, that and I, I would have got that eventually, Al, because I love that as well. That's another detail that separates it from a fraudulent, a fraudulent Wagner. Now here's, here's why I was doing this a little bit like I had this epiphany sort of Thing when you were speaking, which was another part of this watershed moment thing. And this could be a really good thing or maybe this is a good thing. I'm not sure. You got to think it through. Could this, if this card sells really well, could this incentivize the car doctors who are practicing in private scummy clinics? Could it incentivize them to come out of the closet, so to speak, and practice in public and actually be proud of their car doctoring and not try to, not try to create, not try to commit what I call PSA fraud? When you try to trick PSA with one of your alterations, could they not try to commit PSA fraud, try not to trick PSA and actually tell PSA hey, this is a restored card. I'm really proud of it. I did a great job with it. Can you please slab it as authentic restored or partial authentic restored or whatever, however you want to do it like to me. And the reason why I think that could be a good thing is because now maybe people I know it's so far fetched, but maybe if anyone's incentivized now we have fewer cards trying to slip through. If this card realizes good money, maybe. But then we're, and now we're entering into the world where restoration becomes commonplace in our hobby. But guys, news alert. It's already commonplace and accepted with like the other half of the hobby. The other half of the hobby is okay with it. I don't want them in my collection. But the, the I make it an exception for the Wagner because it's not trying to be some. That's why I like that it's yellow. I don't want a card that's trying. I don't want a card that's trying to be something that it shouldn't be trying to be like an, like a fraudulent restored card. So who knows, maybe it goes that way. You guys read the comments. I'm going to read a few out loud. You can listen in, by the way. Hello to Ted Williams. Good to see you in the chat. LGJ questions my earlier comments as every card is altered, what I, what I said, LGJ is every vintage card is altered. And I said that because and, and it's not everyone. If you go, if the card went from wax pack to binder sheet, maybe not altered, but I mean, and I was being extra aggressive with that, but what I meant was any card that is imperfect or not how it came out of the pack has been altered from its out of the pack condition. That's Just a fact. If you, if you've ever dropped a card on the floor, that card has become altered. It is no longer in its original form. But that is honest alteration. All these cards, that's why vintage high end is so valuable, because it's so rare, because they were all being altered when we were throwing them against the wall as kids, when we were putting elastics around them, we altered those cards on either end. It's honest alteration. It wasn't meant to deceive anybody. That's all I'm saying is that. That's what I meant by that comment. Just. And that was already, you know, almost an hour ago. Mickey Minto says it's art. I agree. Vintage football says it's an incredible art project. I think it's an art. Yeah, it was for the restore. Brian says it is perhaps the most talked about Wagner aside from the Gretzky McNall. I think it is. Card Fuchsia says if you believe in something, you, you, you don't defend it. I just have to say to Card Fuchsia's here, this. No one's. This is a dialogue. It's a conversation. I haven't heard Al defend anything. All I've heard Al do is. Is present the story. There's a big difference. Card Fuchsious between presenting a story and defending something. I haven't heard Al defend it. Mookie says who restored the. Okay, we've already gone through that. Mookie. Ron says if the slab had both players names on it, it would make more sense to me. I agree. Ron. I don't like. I don't agree with the slab saying authentic altered, I think, or authentic restored. It's authentic restored, right, Al? Authentic and restored. I, I don't think that's. That tells the whole story. I think there's more to it. Jim Sholey says when a rare dinosaur skeleton is found, sometimes they have to man make some of the skeleton for display to complete it is still a piece of history in our story. I mean, it's a very simple analogy, but he's absolutely correct. That just happened. There was a dinosaur skeleton that sold for like a hundred thousand dollars and it was 62% dinosaur skeleton and the rest was fabric. Yeah. Yeah. So I. It's a great thing. It's a great comment. But. But it. There is still the apples to. Or like even your. Your Ferrari example. Al Cards are not. And I know, you know, cards are not Ferraris, cards are not dinosaurs. But half the hobby thinks they are. The other half, you know, bystander Says, luckily the guy put a different background on it, or we may never know. But that, I mean, however, not the case because it is raised above a little bit as Al just described. So that may not be completely accurate. Bystander Game Time says, is the honest in. Yeah, it is raised higher. We covered that already. Steel City says. Al, I'm curious, as a Wagner collector who will never have a T206, is it obvious? Oh, yeah, it's all. Yeah, it's obvious only in that the background is a lighter color. It's a gradiated gradient. It has a gradient and it's a different color. Right. Whereas the Wagner is more of a flat color and it's more on the orange side. So you can tell by that, but you cannot tell that it's been restored. There's an image from last week, an authentic Wagner on the right and the one in question on the left. You can see it's got the gradient going from light yellow to darker yellow by the shoulders. And. And you can see the authentic one. It's clearly orange. So, yeah, it's obvious. Darren used a particularly orange example for his. For his side by side comparison. There are other Wagners where it's not that egregious a difference. I mean, that was pretty egregious. But. But there are others that are. That are far more, you know, lighter. Map says, very interesting. This restoration was done a while ago. The pieces of the story culminating to make to this make me appreciate it. Thinking it was done recently with the intent to sell made me dislike it. That's fair. And then Mookie says Kurt's card care is very transparent with his restoration of vintage cards. Is he able to auction those with. With love of the game? Now, Al, before you answer, I just want to. I just want to say to Mookie's question. I think Mookie's question is slightly. It's a little bit misleading because Kurt is transparent, but him nor his clients, my understanding is, will ever show the serial number of a PSA slab. So while they might be transparent about what they do, they are committing PSA fraud regularly and trying to get one through. So to Mookie's point now. So I'm. So now I'm gonna. I'm gonna reframe Mookie's question. And Mookie, I think I'm doing. I think I'm not doing you dirty by reframing it this way. By saying to. To Al, would. Would love of the game sell a Kurt's card care restored card that is not graded and that you said very clearly on the auction description that this is a Kurt's. Kurt's Card care restored card. So. So Kurt's card Care, who I guess his name is Kurt, has never tried to consign anything to me. So it's kind of a weird hypothetical. We can broaden this a little bit and ask, would I knowingly sell an altered card? And the answer is sure. If I was able to disclose the alteration that was done, I'm sure that there are cards that have gone through my auction that had alterations done, and they're in grading company holders, and I didn't catch them. We blacklight, we inspect every valuable card that comes in the door so that we can describe them properly. And honestly, there are trimmed cards that we sell all the time, and we identify them as trim. You know, a couple of auctions ago, I had. This is a shame, but I had a 51 bowman mantle that had a fake autograph on it, and nobody would hold her the card because of the fake autograph. So I sold it ungraded. And I said, this autograph is fake. It's not going to pass. You know, and. And so, sure, you know, if I had the ability to be forthcoming with what was. What was done to the card, if it was the kind of card that was in my auction, you know, that. That's right for my auction, you know, I mean, that's another. You know, that's another hypothetical. But you know, again, where. Where I would struggle, Jeremy, is, is I try and think about what happens to the card after it leaves my auction. Okay. So is the next guy gonna do this? And I have an example of this where. Where it makes a lot of sense. And I'll try and be brief about it, which is not always easy with. With when you're me, but. But I'll try. I had a. Josh, help me out here. It was. It M101. Dash to the Sporting News. The large format. Yeah. Like the page. Yeah. Yeah. So I had. I had a Wagner. And this goes back about, I don't know, maybe eight or 10 years now. I had a Wagner, Olajuwe, somebody else and somebody else. And they were in a 1970s picture frame mat, and they were glued to the mat, and there was no way of getting them off. And so I sent them to a conservator and asked the conservator, could you get these off with using nothing but water? And this is a long story, but he used something beyond water. And I lose. I lost my mind. On this guy. But what I did was now I have this Wagner that I know has had some kind of chemical treatment and I'm not comfortable selling it. But Beckett had that monster, you know, the monster slab, that huge, giant, impossible to open slab. So I sent it to Beckett, told them what was done to the card, asked them, you know, grade it altered, then I sold it that way because you can't break that holder. And I know it's still in that holder. And, you know, the other three, I didn't, you know, I didn't sell them. But the Wagner is like, that's a rookie era Wagner. And so that was a great card. And I happen to know it's still in that holder. So there's an example of one that I knew had been, you know, messed with. And I sold it with full disclosure in a way that I knew somebody's not going to break that out and. Or they're not likely to break that out and sell it as not altered. So something I consider. David. Yeah, I mean, I just want to kind of just, you know, from this whole conversation just kind of give a little thing that's been going through my mind over and over again. You know, there's so many of us in this hobby that are just so strict with our opinions on other people's cards, ones that we're never going to buy, ones that other people have in their collection that we're never going to see. And that's why this card is cool, because this is anti establishment. Okay. This is a card that is a little bit of a middle finger to the hobby that feels that way and is so strict and still being disclosed. But it is kind of rock and roll to have this kind of a card that's out there that's saying, you know what? We're not that Wagner. We're a different kind of Wagner. And we're showing it. We're not deceiving anybody. But you know what? We're here and take it or leave it. And you know what? Don't bid on it if it's not yours. But we're putting it out anyway. I like that. I think that that's very cool for this, the punk rock Wagner. Can we do that? This is the punk rock Wagner in that way. Okay, now there's one thing that I made. This is the Franz. The Franz Wagner. Wagner. Get petty, upset Wagner. So the, the other thing, though, I wanted to kind of just think about a little bit as you were speaking about this, Jeremy, that kept going through my mind is when I Heard you say in our conversations a lot also that it's a one of one and you know, most Wagners or most of these cards, you know, they live their life and, and they're beaten up in different ways that are going to make it their own. Right now, is there another thought on this which might be negative, which would be that this doesn't have to be a one of one. Can't any Wagner be treated in a way to make it look like this? So it would be a similar kind of Wagner. Right. Like, does it have to be a one on one with today's technology? Can't you pretty much repair any Wagner to have the same house as this one? Is that something that we should be thinking about or is this different? What's your thought on that? Well, my thought was that you're right, David. Yes, I guess you could take any, any messed up Wagner and you know, make cut around his silhouette, remove the orange back the border, find your leech and, and marry them together. Yeah, I get that. Could be done. The reason why I've erroneously. I think I did make a mistake calling it a. Well, I think right now it might be a one of one. And yeah, one of one is probably not the right terminal. That's a term of convenience for me because it's a hobby term, but really it's probably the only one like it. Maybe that means 101, I don't know. But yeah, you could take a dirty, messed up Wagner and, and do this again with this with the same Tommy Leach donor card. Sure you could. So, yeah, I can't say that this will. But the reason, and I think you and I have even talked about this, Dave, where I've said, yeah, it could be done. But is anyone going to do it again? Probably. There's only like 50, 60 of these things known anyway. You really think it's going to be done again? I doubt it, but I could be. So plausibly speaking, sure, it's, it's plausible. But is it going to happen? I mean, I doubt it. I doubt it, but it could. So. But yeah, I, I do think though that, yeah, you're never gonna, I don't. I still think we're never gonna see another one. Exact. But you know what? I could, I could easily be wrong. But there's, you know, the other comment sort of or, or way to think about it. Like with a mantle, you know, mantle, there's, I don't know, 3,000 known or slabbed, 52 tops. Mickey Mantles. I bet a lot of those would be candidates for this. I'm sure there's a lot of like, you know, driven from the, from Chris Ses, driven over by the truck division that would be good candidates to be completely reconstructed. Now, if you're, Again, if you're going to put that on the same original colored background, I have a problem with that as a collector, as a hobbyist. But if you're going to put it on a different colored background and make it an art piece as well, like a restored art. Now restored maybe doesn't even apply because you're not restoring it to what it looked like originally. You're restoring to something new. So I don't, I don't like the term restored or authentic on this card. I think CGC got it wrong. I think they, I think they got it wrong. But we know what the card is, so maybe they'll want to correct it one day, maybe they won't. The more important question is how are they going to operate moving forward with similar. If they ever get something similar into the shop again, I suppose. Al, are you able to speak to cgc? And I know that a lot of people have asked, like, why isn't this. Why, why didn't it go to psa? Can you speak to that? And, and, and what cgc? How, how do they back up these labels as authentic and restored? Well, because it's authentic and it's been restored. We can disagree about that. And that's fine. I get that. But, but, you know, when, when I had the card, my feeling was that part of the, part of the objective here 30 years ago was to come to the hobby and show the hobby that restoration that could be done to a sports card. So I didn't want to have the card slabbed. Authentic, authentic, altered. I think you touched on this earlier. That card was altered when it was cut. That's the alteration. Okay. The building it back is the restoration to that alteration. Right. If that had never been done, if that die cut had never happened, it would be a full, complete original Wagner that would not have been altered. Right. So the alteration happened and now we're trying to restore it. So in my mind, there were two grading companies for this. Now, I should, I should specify that I have had similar situations with Andy Broom, okay, Where they're not even similar situations, but there's situations where research and provenance have, have been extraordinary. And I've gone to grading companies with an item and had them had and been turned down for holdering things that Andy, when he was at Beckett, said is willing to look at the evidence and look at everything and say, yeah, this is cool. I'll authenticate this. An example of this that had been in one of my auctions is an old postcard that had an extraordinary bit of research that was done by the collector who bought this postcard. And what it was was a 1914 real photo postcard of Fenway Park. You know that, Josh, I think I see you nodding your head. Is this the Babe Ruth card? This is the Babe Ruth card. This is an amazing piece of research. It's a photo that was taken at Fenway park from right field of the players on the field. So they're all about the size of your thumbnail. Okay? But this collector was first able to identify that from the ballpark configuration and the ads and things like that, that it was 1914. And then he enlarged the scoreboard and he was able to see the numbers of the players that were on the field. And then he obtained a 1914 scorecard and saw the corresponding numbers, because this before players had numbers on their back. So the way you would know who's on the field is if you look in the scorecard, Tris speaker is number 10. And it says in the scoreboard that the center fielder is number 10. So that's tris speaker out there. And so through that research, he was able to discern that Babe Ruth was on the mound. And that made that the earliest photo of Babe Ruth in a major league uniform from 1914. But he's this big. And so we took that information to both PSA and sgc, and they were like, yeah, no, I'm not comfortable with that. And we took it to Andy, and Andy's response was, wow, this is great research. Of course I'm gonna slab this card and, yes, I'm also gonna submit it to the magazine people so that they can write an article about it. And so it was, you know, that kind of forward thinking. You know, not everything fits the same, you know, bucket fits in the same bucket. That made me think that CGC was a dependable grading company that could. I could bring a card like this, too, and explain what I was looking for, which was to have it graded, authentic, restored. And I did the same thing with psa. Psa. Neither of them could guarantee me that on the phone and with the videos that I sent them that they were going to agree. They both said, yeah, I need to have the card in my hand to evaluate it. But psa, what they said to me, we can't guarantee that we're going to grade it authentic restored. And CGC said if you're, if it's what you're telling us it is, we will grade it authentic restored. And that's why the card is in a CGC holder, because when you submit a card to a grading company, you pay for it no matter how it comes back. So. So, you know, do I want to pay PSA to give me a card back in a holder? You know, my opinion is the holder with a card like this, what holder it is doesn't matter. You know, and there's precedent for that with Wagner's. With it, with the naggy Wagner that was in a global hold or way back when, you know, the Wagner sells for what Wagner sells for. What we want to know is, is it authentic or not? And, you know, this is. Andy was willing to say, yeah, we can do that. We can put in an authentic restored holder. And that's what I wanted. I didn't want it to pay a grading fee and have it come back authentic altered. That's the answer to the question. No, thanks for answering that. I think that's. I think people are really interested. So I'm glad that you're here to do that. I want to say hello to Jerem, Me, Philip Pelly, really quick. And now was that. Were those waves, David, or was that I want to talk. Or was it a bit of both? Go ahead, David. Did CGC mention at all, like, was there a percentage of original Wagner that was needed to get that grade? Did they have that conversation with you? No, I didn't. I didn't ask. And I think, you know, Josh, Josh touched on this on last week's show when you were talking about this. You know, grading companies do things like this all the time. They'll make an exception to their policy, you know, for an extenuating circumstance. And I think that's what this is. I mean, tomorrow they're not going to get 15 more cards like this that they're going to have to make the same decision on. You know, this is kind of a, you know, pretty unique situation. And so, you know, what you have here is, you know, and I, I understand, Jeremy, that like, cars and cards are different and all these different collectible categories are different. But, you know, again, if you take a piece of antique furniture and you have to give it new legs, you know, it's still a piece of antique furniture. And, and, you know, it's been restored. If you have to put new knobs on the drawers, it's still antique furniture. And, and so, you know, and it Goes like that in, in any collectible category where restoration is freely and openly discussed. The only category that I'm aware of where it's not accepted is in sports cards because it's not freely and openly discussed. So it's this huge taboo. It's changing. It's. They're starting to talk about open, more open and freely now. You can even. I saw an advertisement for a card show a week or two ago. Right. On the card show advertisement, it said, rest on site restoration. Wow, that's bold. That is, that is old. You know, it is. So it's like I said, there's the other half of the hobby guys. They're not coming on these shows because they're committing PSA fraud, but amongst themselves, they don't mind. They, they like to do it. And we hear about it. I hear from them all the time, especially these last six weeks where we've been talking a lot about this. And, you know, I've taken the, the positions that I've taken. I got. Those guys don't like me very much right now because I say that they're committing PSA fraud. They say, no, we're just doing our thing on our cards. You know your point about the, the, the, the vintage couches or the antique couches, so Chesterfields, we may as well call them right now. You know, where you're adding legs back to them, like you're, that is, that is giving that piece of furniture a second life. I mean, these things were never alive in the first place. That might sound funny, but it's giving them. It's like it's reuse, it's reusing something. It's not just putting it into the, in, into the, the dump. Not, not just put into the garbage dump and all that. Yeah, I like when that happens. I, I, I, I. And that's where I'm okay with this card personally. And I, again, listen, I kind of. I really like the card. I don't know how well, but I like it because it's been given a second chance. Yeah, Part of it has the import, the most important part of that original Wagner before it was cut decades, generations ago. It's being given a second chance at life because I, I've seen a lot of people say that they would rather have the, the silhouetted piece. Yeah, Yeah. I can't get behind that. I think it looks like it's a piece of gar. It looks like a piece of garbage on its own to me. It looks. I don't want to own things in my collection That I think look. Look like garbage. And that's just me. But I'll. I'll find the image I should have here. This is it. Before I. To me, this does. This is not a sports card to me. This is. This is. This is not something that I would proudly own. Like, I just. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't kick it to the curb, guys. Don't get me wrong. The thing would. Is still worth a lot of money. But I'll tell you what, I'm only. I'm only owning it because it's worth money. I would not get really very little hobby joy from having this thing in my collection. This to me looks like scrap paper. So I would rather own it. Like, it's still the same thing. It's now just been present made to present cleaner. Just me. Josh will tell you he'd rather have the silhouette. That's fine. I don't. That doesn't impact what I would like. That's what Josh would like. And that's totally cool. I respect the heck out of it, but I would rather have it have some form and be surrounded by beauty, you know, Like, I don't know. We all. We always talk whenever I have someone on the show, like, how's my background? I'm like, your background's good. It's good. You know, could it be better? Sure. But, you know, you don't need to worry about it. Like, we all want. We all wear nice. We all wear clothes to make ourselves. Women wear makeup to make themselves look better. Again, apples to oranges. Some women, I guess. I don't know. But I'm just saying. Basically, this Wagner went from being what I look at as a piece of scrap paper, it's been given some lipstick, let's say. I think it looks really good the way it is now to the point where I would love to own it in its current form, the old form, the. The silhouetted form. I wouldn't. I wouldn't really. I would take that money and buy something different. Thanks for tuning in and being a part of the sports cards live community. Don't forget to, like, subscribe and most of all, all keep collecting more great content to come. Sports cars is a lifestyle.