Centering is overrated? + Is Fanatics Entering Grading? + The Hobby's Next Battle

Hello there. I'm Davin Hiskey, and on my podcast, the Brain Food show, our team, including the great Simon Whistler, our own devices Gilles Messier and fact fiend's Carl Smallwood serve up fascinating facts and stories that'll blow your mind. From ancient mysteries to scientific curiosities to deep dive history, we deliver knowledge that will help you become the star of Water Cooler Talk the world over. Listen to the Brain Food show wherever you get your podcasts. Sports Cards is a lifestyle. Sports Cards live now. Jeremy Lee in the building and every guest 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. All right, Josh, you want to join? You good? Yeah. All right, guys, please welcome Joshua Adams. Josh, please meet Robert. Robert, lovely to meet you. You have a lovely voice for radio. I have a lovely face for radio. It sounds great. So thank you, Josh. Jeremy, what's happening? What do I have, Josh? What do I have? An aura. You're the best. You're industry. You're incomparable. He's the. He's the. He's the. He's up for hobby president if there's ever another election. There's a lot of people that want to see Joe maybe take over for. Not take over. I mean, man, Genie's a great president for the hobby, but if his term ever ends, which I don't know the rules on that in the hobby politics, Joe's up for. Up for election, I believe, which will be fun. Okay, so the. The next topic I want to get into. Guys, this is a. This is a Robert topic. We talk a lot about eye appeal, and I. Appeal tends to center around centering in many cases. You know, you. If you list, if you listen to this show before, you know that I like centering, but to me, focus is more important. Robert, what is the most important element of eye appeal for you? It's. It's interesting. I have to think about it and why. Why it is the way it is. And I think about a card's DNA. So the card is printed, it's cut, and it comes out in a certain way. Centering is. Is something that will never change in a card outside of being altered. It is what it is. And so I think of a card, you get it out of a pack. And the thing that sticks in my mind because I look at my collection when I Was a kid. Cornering has been demolished over the years. In all of my cards, I used to throw them against wall against the walls. You know, you knockdowns, topsies, far these, whatever, whatever you want to play. Which is a form of altering, I suppose. And so to me, when I see a card that is 50, 70, 100 years old and the cornering is perfect, I look at that as to me eye appeal is, is one of the take center stage. No pun intended. Corners, corners, corners of cards. So the sharpness of the, the corners on a card are, are very appealing to me more so than perfect centering. So I will look at a card and say, hey, I know right off the get go a card is not going to be a 10 because centering is off. And this doesn't apply, let's say to modern cars. But when I'm looking at cards that are more vintage. If I look at a card and I sent one to you, Jeremy, where the, the. The card looked. We'll call it packed fresh from. It was a 1951 or 1952 Parkhurst. It was as though it was brand, brand spanking. The centering was off, but the corners are sharp as they were day one. And to me that to me is very nice eye appeal. And I prefer that over perfect centering with, with less than sharp corners, guys. You can all lean if you want while we have this overlay. Other way, guys. Other way, other way, other way. Joe, other way. There you are. There's Joe. Josh. Other way. Robert. Other way. You don't have to. It's okay. I'll take it off in a moment. But overlaid on our screen right now is a 1952 Parkhurst Pete coniker card number 33 and a PSA 8 holder. And as you can tell, it has beautifully sharp corners and edges. Great color, but it is off center to the southwest a little bit mostly to the west. I would say side to side. A beautiful card overall, Robert, but not one that the majority of eye appeals talkers about hers would say had strong eye appeal because most people go for centering. I go for. I, I go registration then centering corners I'm willing to give on corners are probably the least important aspect to me because I, I just, it just less just me. So. But I, I like how you told the story as to kind of why, why you love sharp corners. But I want to like have you always been that way your whole collecting life or did you kind of realize that you were that way Once I appeal conversation sort of took over hobby Narrative. I didn't give it much thought until I started hearing the I appeal discussion. And almost universally, the collectors were talking about centering being the. At the forefront of the I appeal discussion. And I thought to myself, I'm in a different camp. I'm willing to give up some centering if I can have something like, something that indicates that this card is almost in pristine condition like it was when it was open for the first time decades ago. And because the centering, you can't change, it will never change. The corners can easily change based on how the card is handled. So the idea that it's been pristine for decades appeals to me more than the perfect centering, more than the rarity of a perfectly centered card out of the pack. Yeah. So let's, let's get the panel's thoughts on this, because this is a new take. Not it's a new take, but it's just a take we don't hear very often when it comes to eye appeal. And if there are people, well, but by the way, look, Dylan, Double D says centering is new school, and Splenda says corners over centering. Yeah, I said it. So, Robert, you're not alone, which I love. I love alone in this. And what, what was. What do you want to say to those guys, Robert? I'm glad to know that there's somebody in the same camp as me. That's great. I thought I was on a lonely island. So you. Obviously you aren't. Mookie here says sharp corners on a vintage card make me think the card was uncirculated or put away and never enjoyed. That's a little sad to me. How do you respond to that comment, Robert? I think it was probably enjoyed just fine. You know, there's certain cards I look at that I look at every single week, and no damage done to them. I'm sure they were, you know, in a lot of cases, they probably were enjoyed. I think it's just such a rare, A rare phenomenon to see a. A perfectly cornered card. Yeah, I, I think it, you know, it is too. I agree with that. Let's. Let's hear from Joshua Adams on this. Josh. I mean, where do you fall on. And we're talking about vintage cards here. We're talking about eye appeal. Josh, what do you think about the corners take? Not. Not preference of the preference for corners versus where do you fall, Josh? I appeal. I've never cared about centering ever. So it's kind of funny to see that come up all of a sudden now. And I appeal has been a thing for, like, 30, 40 years. I don't know. Like, all of a sudden, it's taken off again, which is nice to see kind of like, as a backlash against grading. But it's an interesting point about. About. About corners, right? Like, you can't. What Robert said. So, I mean, I, like, I'll let my car don't have any wrinkles and good registration. I'm good to go. That's kind of where I stand on my standards for I appeal. How about you, Joe? What do you think about corners being the. The lead as far as somebody's eye appeal preference goes? Well, apropos to what y' all were talking about earlier, I mean, there's. There's qualities and conditions that make me somewhat dubious. And so if we're looking at centering in particular, one thing that's nice about, say, a 65, 35 centering maybe, or a card that's not perfectly centered is you might feel a little bit better about it not being trimmed. You know, on the other hand, corners can also be a way in which trimming helps a card achieve sharper corners. So you kind of got to look for that. So I don't know. I'm kind of. I'm kind of someone that. I don't need anything to be perfect unless it's the registration to be, like, not having, like, anything horrific with it. But I can live with a little off center. I do. I do. Like, I kind of went through a stage where I was very much in Robert's camp, where the corners. There was something really appealing to me about a card that had obviously not been sort of circulated. And I sometimes wonder if, you know, those might be factory sets or kind of vending box additions, which are fine. That's how I got my 73 tops baseball set, which they weren't perfect corners, but they were. They were pretty damn good. And anyway, yeah, I'm kind of in the middle class. I'd say on all things. I just. I don't want any. One thing to be detracting me from appreciating the card, But I can live with a little. A little off center, a. A little corner, you know, minor. Nothing. Nothing too much. And then most of what I appreciate is, yeah, registration and. And color saturation. Yeah, okay, I know that about you, Joe. So. Okay, but maybe the chat didn't. So it's like, yeah, the amount we talk. But Robert, I want to present you with. With a. A phrase, and that is say sexy corners. Sexy corners. Corners with, you know, what you Know, I'm talking not sharp, rounded. Nice symmetrical rounding. All four corners have that same curve going around it. You look at that, you look at the symmetry. You look at the, the nice roundness of it, you know, almost like, like the corners of a Pokemon card in a way. Like, even this card that we showed earlier tonight on the screen, this one right here, I'm just covering us up. But look at the right side. We look at that. Look at those corners. How like, it looks like it was. This card was produced with corners that were meant to be rounded like that. But that's just natural wear over time. I, I think those, while they're not sharp, like out of the pack, if the card is centered, good registration, Those rounded corners, they don't bother me. Like, to me, they just, they don't take away from the eye appeal. So I want to push back a little bit, but just to really not push back. Dive in further, Robert, and ask you, like, do you like sharp corners because they represent a survivor, or do you like sharp corners because you actually think they look better than sexy corners? I'm gonna say both. Okay. If I can, I. Of course you can. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think the idea of it being close to perfect over a, Over a long period of time, I think is incredible. When I, When I see cars just surviving through pre war, just even being being available, is incredible unto itself. And then to have cards that are decades old and have that close to perfection on the corners is something that I find astonishing. It's almost surreal to see cards that have survived that over that time frame, to have that. Corners of that stature so well, the one thing that comes out of it. And Kinger in the chat raises this thought that I've had as well. He says, also very sharp corners. I think she cut initially before looking into the card. So she cut, you know, really applies to not everything, but I get. She cut isn't actually where my mind was going. I was just going into, like, trimming and that kind of thing. So when I see a really old card that has perfect corners, the red flags go up for me more than, wow, this is a survivor. I right away think to myself, okay, is this natural? And then you got to start measuring and things like that. Do you, Robert, in your, you know, opinions on, on eye appeal and corners, do you put cards through that? Is this trimmed sort of filter before you decide that this is a card that you want to, that you want to own? Yeah, it's a great question, and I'd have to look at it More on the, in the raw space. I, I take grading when I'm looking at a graded card with the corners. I, I have to assume that the, that the card has been measured for any sort of alteration or, or changes to the card. So I'm going to take the, the grading company at their, at their word that they've, they done the work to put a, a positive authentication on it. Yeah, fair. I mean, I think, yeah, once you're comfortable, you're comfortable with it, right? Joe, are you like me in that when the card is that sharp that you do you go through that filter? Does, do you automatically go to. Is this natural or do you right away just go to, this is beautiful. I'm unfortunately a little cynical and a little paranoid, I guess you could say. The, and it's probably why the journey of my collecting, you know, it would have made more sense as I, you know, ended up making more money professionally and amassing more cards to, to consolidate. I, I would have probably made sense to go into higher level vintage because I was always a vintage collector. And that's not to say that ultra modern, modern cards don't have their own shenanigans going on too. But I found myself less interested in the, you know, go type cards, the mantles and mazes and errands in sevens and eights, you know, through the 50s and 60s, just because I was happy with a five or a six that looked relatively like within the realms of like, oh my God, how did this card survive like this? Or is this been doctored in some way? So that, that's my own journey. I've kind of siphoned more into, into more the modern cards that, you know, look sharp occasionally. Yes, people do nefarious things to the modern and ultra modern worlds. Obviously there's backdoor copies. There's all kinds of things going on there. But yes, Jeremy, to answer your question, yes, I definitely have a first take of. Oh my goodness, what do we have here? Is it real? Is it. Does it look too good to be true? It probably is. What about you, Josh? What about you? Like, and not just on sharp corners, but on, you know, perfect edges, clean white borders on a, on a card that has, where the borders are actual card stock versus like a gloss or an ink color, like a 48 leaf, I don't think has any color on the borders or I think it's just raw stock. And if that is too clean, I get concerned. What about you, Josh? Are there things that pop out to you? So I'm naturally skeptical by nature. No, no. What a surprise, everybody, right? I know. So I am skeptical of any high grade vintage card that has traveled a hundred years through time and looks like it just came out yesterday. So I think, personally, I think it's had work done on it. So that's where I stand. If I see that, my mind goes to. It's. That's why I stick with low grade stuff. Although I'm sure that's been worked on too, like we saw with that sweet cat back. So. Yeah, yeah. Robert, any sort of follow ups to this, to the topic or is. Are you. I think you guys brought up some great points, something for me to consider going forward, but I don't. Something new today. Yeah, but you know what, Robert? I don't think, like, I, I sincerely hope that none of this changes your priority and I don't think it will. Maybe it just causes you to add a few layers to the filter that, you know, I love it. I love it. You guys gave some really good points to consider when looking at cards and whether they should be a part of the collection. It's great. Well, you want to jump in? No, I just wanted to second what you said, Jaylee. I, I don't think there's anything wrong with having those kind of sensibilities. I would just always be a little, you know, just careful. Especially the bigger the card. Right. Like if you're, if you're collecting, you know, a 19, you know, 67, 1966 Dick Allen card, for instance, you know, it's like go high grade because like if it looks good and it probably isn't too good to be true, but if it's a, if it's a mantle, like that's where, you know, at 8 or 9, that's where I start to get like hesitant because the financial incentive for people to mess with those has for quite a long time been there. And I thought that was an interesting part to the earlier conversation how there's definitely doctors who are more skilled and less skilled. And I hate to say that, I hate to kind of evaluate any of it being good, but there's a point in the conversation where I think David Chase was mentioning like, this looks like a bad alteration or a bad, you know, car doctor or spa, if you will. Sorry, can you hear this? Fireworks. We're good. We're all good. Okay, couple comments here. We're going to go to. Dylan here says sharp corners are a dime a dozen, which I think he's, you know, I think is right in many cases. Carl from Oz is enjoying the discussion On a cold Melbourne Sunday, he's all but he's on team centering for sure. N. Huggins agree with with Robert I'd also say color and registration have a huge impact on eye appeal for me. Me too. Nah Huggins and nice to see you. Nah Huggins. Ken Fickle says centering seems more important for the new junk wax era. I I think and I think as far as ultra modern, if he's by new junk wax era if he's talking about ultra modern I think that makes sense because corners and edges and registration and surface outside of some dimples here and there are perfect. These everything's perfect right? These days centering might be the only thing that differentiates a BGS 10 from a BGS 95 or a PSA 10 from a PSA 9. Everything's everything's like they're all nines or 10. So centering might be the only difference. But I but we're not taught. We're talking about vintage when it comes to eye appealing for the most part anyway. Dylan does say I appeal. Today is just different than the past. Tim says clean autograph trumps, centering and corners. Fair enough Tim, but it's to me autographs aren't even part of the discussion. I mean unless they, unless it's an autograph car. But not even thinking about that. Dylan says centering is way more rare than sharp corners. I think that's true. Stu says I have some nice creased cards that are centered which I used to be so anti crease and now I will take a crease on a card if it's placed in a way that doesn't, that doesn't like impede the beauty of the card. To me I never thought I'd ever take a card that was creased and now because of my the way I'm collecting, I'm okay with creases that are not not easy to see. Double D. Dylan says rest in peace. Beater Joe. Beater Joe is now Rodeo Joe for anybody who missed the hangover from Wednesday. Beater Joe, Joe Perot. His new name is Rodeo Joe. Steve Splenda says all these centering cultists disgust me, standing all high and mighty on their Zion cases. I'm glad Joe, for I'm glad David Chase isn't here for that one. Mark says I think we should meet for drinks at Sexy Corners, the collection firm says Evan Mathis told me. By the way, Evan Mathis, you know, ex NFL player, card dealer, well known card alterer says Evan Mathis told me he specifically sought out oversized cards so even after trimming they would meet the size specifications. And Dylan says gotta just stick with what you like unless your wife tells you your cards are all off centered. Fair comment right there. So okay, so there we go. Whole bunch of things on, on that topic. We had one more. There's one other topic there. Robert, how's your time by the way? I'm okay. So if you want to go forward with another topic. Happy to touch upon. Stick around. There's another topic that Robert brought which is kind of different from all these, yet sort of similar still. I'll just present it. Josh, Joe, get ready. Want your thoughts Chat. Get ready to consider this. And I don't think this, it's not a brand new topic but I don't think we've talked about it this way and it's quite simple. He says would fanatics take a stake in MBA Grading as collectors desperately look for an alternative grader to PSA not because they want to, but because PSA isn't accepting their submissions for at the value and bulk levels anymore. So if grading costs a minimum of $80 right now, which I believe it does, what are your options for your cards that are only worth a hundred dollars if they're graded, let's say, sort of thing. So I think it's an interesting question because very specifically Robert, you did not say would Fanatics open up its own grading company or would Fanatics go and try to acquire CGC or TAG Grading or any other grading company that's unowned by PSA's parent collectors. You specifically mentioned MBA. So what now that I've presented the topic, Robert, why are you focusing in on mba? What would you like them to what are you thinking? Robert? So the thoughts, Jeremy, on it were that when I'm going on various various auction sites looking at cards to buy, I know TAG and CGC have some traction in the Pokemon and TCG world, but not much in the sports card world. But I am seeing traction in the sports card world and I believe that fanatics does want to get their piece of the pie. And I thought that SGC was a preemptive move by PSA to buy and block fanatics from making that acquisition. So I'm saying what would, what would fanatics move be to get into the grading space specifically to have a, have, have a spot within the sports card world. And it seems like MBA is the, is the solution there. So that was the reason for the the thought. So it was a question, it was something that came to mind if I Was looking to buy a speculative stock that I think might. Might go up. This would be, you know, not a don't bet, don't put all your money into it, but it might be something that you put some speculative money on, on that type of an idea. You want to buy futures and NBA right now, don't you? Yeah, I might put a few bucks on it. So, yeah, I mean, I want. Listen, somebody said here, let's go. Jordan here said, too late. Beckett was the one. I agree with you. I think the acquisition, Robert, of SGC by collectors was a preemptive move against anyone else buying them, I. E. Fanatics. I do think that was the case there. So then the question is, is NBA a legitimate target for fanatics? I. My only. My only reason why I don't know is because of the scaling. Like, if fanatics were to buy a grading company, they. They would need to scale it immediately because right away there would be all the marketing push they would need. Fanatics fest would. Would be, you know, dominated by NBA or whichever. Whoever they bought. And they need the graders. They would just need the personnel in place. And I don't know if. If NBA has that. I know that they're hiring and they're probably growing rapidly right now. So they probably are out there hiring. But are they the. Are they the right target? Is somebody else the right target? Or like, let's go. Jordan said, has that ship sailed? And. And it should have been Beckett or it could have been Beckett, but then collectors bought them too. Maybe another preemptive strike along with. With picking up a. A wonderful brand in the hobby. So let's go to Josh and Joe, who want. Which of you want to go first? You're both still on mute. We're going to start with you, Joe. What are your thoughts on fanatics potentially picking up a grading company and maybe that one being NBA? Oh, I. I mean, I. I guess I'm. Maybe I'm not totally understanding the relationship the fanatics would have to the grading company. Because they did. They did use NBA for a while. Right. At which point they transferred over to CGC when they were. Hold on, Joe. Sorry. Joe, you're just so. You know, you're talking about something completely different. You're simply talking about authenticating at fanatics collect. We're talking about fanatics entering the grading space because the hobby needs another alternative. So that's the. Sorry, that. Just to refocus you, if that helps at all. No, yeah, it does. It does. But I. I guess I kind of see it as a Bit of church and state, you know, I mean, they're already producing cards and one of the major auction houses. So to add a third cog to that just seems a little, I, I think it definitely has legs. Robert. I, I don't disagree with you that they, they're certainly considering it and maybe, maybe a couple opportunities have already passed them by and maybe the NBA is up being the very best option that they have and, and we might very well see it. I don't have a crystal ball, but for me personally, I'd prefer they just kind of stick with what they're already doing, which seems pretty gargantuan to begin with. I, I guess I'm just a little, I don't know, gun shy of. And I know Jeremy doesn't like the word monopolies, but he, you know, that's the word that comes to mind when I start, you know, hearing them taking on a, a grading company as well. How about you, Joshua Adams, Any thoughts? I think if fanatics can make money, they'll do it like they're a company that's for profit and if they could, if it's beneficial, they'll do it. I guess I don't really, you know, that's all I have. I don't really know much more about it. Well, it's fair. No fair comment. I think you're right. I think, I think you're absolutely right. They are in that they are in any business to make, make money and if there's money to be made. But this is the, this is a case of not just like making money easily. It's, it takes investing in order to make money down the road. They would have to invest in the, in the scalability, the, the facilities, the, the human resources, all these things in order to get to it being profitable. Quick comment here, but card Fuchsia says nobody has the infrastructure or the market to be worthy of buying and that might be the case. So actually based on the first half of 2026 grading numbers that came out from gem rate, I did, I did some math for fun the other day. I happened to find my little graph here and I looked at the market share that everybody has because I, I always, I've been saying, oh, PSA with its subsidiaries or sister companies has, I think I would have 9, 85, 90 of the market. Well, PSA when combined with BGS and SGC only holds 77.86% of the market year to date. 2026, call it 78% of cards graded went through PSA, BGS or SGC. Of that 78% over 70, almost 73% is PSA, almost 4% is BGS and 1.5% is SGC. Now tag grading slides in there above SGC and below Beckett at 1.62%. So if PSA, if collectors went and bought SGC at the time had more than 1.53%, nailed them down to 1.53%. Would, would tags 1.62% be enough to buy? Not for the 1.62% for the technology, yes. Not for the 1.62%, I don't think. Because when collectors went out and bought SGC when they had 7 or 8% of the market they have then now, you know, ruined them down to 1 1/2% of the market. I say ruined because I gotta think the people that created that company who still work there must be like, what is going on here? Unless they're just eventually going to be folded right up into psa, which I think is when you're, when you go from 7 or 8%, I think it was down to 1.53. There's a story that, that's not just a story. That's a signal right there of what's going on. I don't think that's new news to anybody. I don't, I'm not, I'm not breaking news here, guys. I'm just sharing the thoughts based on the analysis that I did. So I think it's interesting. Bob Boozle says, I would think fanatics would not want to deal in vintage grading. I would think the same thing. Baboozle vintage grading is, it's the riskiest. It's the, it's, it's, it's also the, the, the one that requires the most skill. I mean, you need skill to grade cards down in those one to seven grades. Modern is all eights, nines and tens. It's not very hard. You don't have to be right to be good. You can just pick a grade, put it out there. Nobody cares. The hobby doesn't care. The customer is upset that they got, they didn't get the 10 they thought they were going to get. But then that's it. They have no recourse and it's over. You don't. It take, it takes no skill. Takes very little skill, relatively speaking, to grade an ultra modern card than it does to grade a vintage card. So I agree with the comment that with Bob Boozle, I think it was Bob Boozle's comment that I don't think fanatics would want to get into grading vintage cards. And that's what NBA does a lot of. So Robert, this is all new in my mind last minute here. What do you think of that potential kind of counterpoint? I'm looking at it from the perspective that fanatics somehow wants to get into grading sports cards and what's the easiest way to get into it. And I know there's church and state and as a, as a collecting community, we don't need to agree that that should happen. There's a whole host of conflicts of interest that will take on another, another show unto itself and another topic. But nonetheless I think that they, they want to get their hands in it. It's an opportunity to whether it's repackaged product to sell or whatever it might be. I believe that they want to have access to grading cards right from the get go and selling them to the hobby community. Yeah. And NBA is probably an easy way to get in there. Yeah, I think, I think so. I mean NBA has a, among. There's a couple cohorts out there, but among one cohort it's got a great reputation as a, as a grader. Mike Baker himself. And who knows now how many graders they have reporting up into him. You know, I'm sure we could find out, maybe ask him, but I don't know. But yeah, I mean I, I think that if any grading company right now has a chance to be the next like SGC at its peak, what SGC was at its peak, I think, I think NBA has the best potential to become to, to, to carve out that sort of share of the market regard. You know, not everyone's going to love it, but a lot of people do. And those that don't don't have to use it just like, just like anything. Joe, Josh, anything else to say before I go to a couple more comments, guys? Well, I just say, you know, I think speed is the name of the game, at least in the auction world, you know, getting the cards to market quickly. And that's why I think, I know it's just authentication, but to me that's a pretty big in house connection they already have with cgc. So I don't know, I see them wanting to do it, as Josh said, an opportunity to make more money, but at least in lubricating the efficiency where it is now, I mean NBA would have to really scale up. I think you already mentioned that, Jaylee. But the amount of cards that would be coming at them because you know they've always offered the send away to Beckett to to psa. But now of course a wrench has been thrown in that and I think that's probably, you know, I wonder if, sorry if fanatics would ever just considering consider like from the ground up, organically creating their own grading house and bringing in some high end, you know, names from from PSA and or Beckett and really, you know, not opting out or farming it out. So anyway, interesting conversation. Thanks for tuning in and being a part of the sports cards live community. 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