Chopping It Up With the OG Guest of This Show!!

Welcome to the Goldin Age of Cardboard podcast, where we remember a time when stacks of cards were held together with rubber bands and Mickey Mantles were put in bike spokes. We hope you will enjoy and reminisce as you come along with us as we tell stories about the baseball cards from the Goldin age of baseball. We will examine the state of the vintage baseball card market and talk to some of the greatest collectors in the hobby. You one-of-one be hearing us talk about any chrome or shiny cards. Here now to take you on this retrospective journey, here's your host, direct from the shallow end of the gene pool, my son, Mike Moynihan. Hello, everybody. Mike here. Welcome to another episode of the Goldin Age of Cardboard podcast. I'm your host this week, every week. And we are almost done with summer. Schools are starting. Some places, some places they're not starting. Here, they've all started, which feels really early to me, but I don't have kids in school anymore, so I guess I shouldn't even care. Like, why does it matter? I don't know. But it does mean that football season is around the corner, and in particular, college football season. And that matters a lot to my guests tonight. To, you know, I have a lot of friends in the hobby, and then I have a lot of or a few very, very close friends in the hobby. And this dude is in that camp. He's one of my oldest friends in the hobby. I want to talk with him a little bit about the early days of our friendship here in a minute. And ironically, guys, he was the first guest that I had on this show. The very first episode included him. Let's bring him on. His name is Andy. You guys know him as she Blinded Me With Refractors. Hey, bud. Boo. Longhorns. Well, we'll see. I think Yu-Gi-Oh is going to be ranked 8th. I think I heard about that. Sounds about right. Yu-Gi-Oh It's not where you start, it's where you finish. So that's always true. Yes, we will see. I'll be interested to see Indiana this year because the TCU quarterback left and is now the quarterback in Indiana coming on, you know, having to replace Mendoza and, you know, national championship, all the stuff. See, he Goldin handle the pressure of the Big 12, and now he's gonna just be plopped into the Big ten and he's gonna be great. I don't know. Maybe. We'll see. Honestly, I don't even know who's going to be playing for us this year outside of the quarterback position, but we'll See is materials quarterback this year. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh We still have. Still have mater. Okay. Which he was disappointing last year, but hopefully, you know, a year under his belt playing in that tough sec. Hopefully he'll be ready. So our friendship has been around a while. Yu-Gi-Oh I think. I mean, I know you. Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but maybe you did. But it kind of sounded like you were calling me old. You are, because I'm old. And I've always looked at you like, this is the most positive way I can possibly think of this, but like a little brother. You're a little bit younger than me and. But we. We talk. Yu-Gi-Oh we. A little bit. I've always looked at you like a brother, you know, and. Which is weird because we met through cards. Right. You know, it just. If you ask the regular average Joe person. Oh. There's no way that, you know, over time you can build a friendship, a true friendship with someone just through cards. And I'm like, I got plenty of examples of that in my life. And I would dare to say you would be wrong on that. I mean, you and I have played poker together. We have been. We've roomed it. Five Nationals together. Maybe. Probably. Yu-Gi-Oh At least. Feels about right. Five feels right. I'd have to really think about it. But we met at the 2018 National. I think that's correct. Yu-Gi-Oh I was going to ask you if you remembered how we first met. 18 national. I remember meeting you and Moeller. You were with Moeller, I think, and you came up to me and said, are you Mike baseball collector? I do believe you said that. I think I said, you are Mike baseball collector. It may not have been a question. That's. That's absolutely true. And I was like, hey, what do you think about this Topps, Willie Mace that I got? That's exactly. It was a five. No, it was like a two. Oh, but it looked like a five. It looked like a five. There you go. Yu-Gi-Oh With the Yu-Gi-Oh appeal movement today, it might as well have been five. Right. I remember walking away from that first meeting going, who is that dude? Like, I had no idea who you were. Yu-Gi-Oh I could tell. I could tell. Yu-Gi-Oh And I felt. I. But then. Then what happened? Like, I don't know what the next steps were, you know, That's a good question. I don't really recall either, like, how. I think, okay, so the way I remember this could be wrong, but I think, like, you had watched maybe one or two of my videos, like, after we met, and I think maybe you Gave me like a shout out on your channel. Maybe that was. No, it had to been after. Because you didn't know who I was when we first met. But I think somehow, Yu-Gi-Oh through that. I don't remember us the first time we spoke after that initial meeting though. Yu-Gi-Oh I. I have the same problem with Garrett. Like, I can't remember. Like, you and Garrett are my two best friends in the hobby. And I Goldin tell you how Garrett and I's friendship developed either. I have no idea. Which is probably fine because who really cares, right? But it's just. It's a weird dynamic. I mean, you and I. Let's see, we've. You've been to my kids birthday parties. Yu-Gi-Oh we. You've spent the night at My House more than anyone by far. You haven't been in the ranch yet. But I haven't been to the ranch, the old house. Man, I'm gonna miss that small room. I was so disappointed when you got rid of the chair in there. Right? I had the chair for so long. Oh, man. Man, we've come a long way that, you and I. You were there. You were there. I bought my very first or my biggest card I've ever bought. The Mantle Rookie. You were there for that. And then we went and played poker after. Remember that? We went to the casino right after, like we bought. And it was just sitting in my. My car, you know, And I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh I know. Like that. I mean, it's just weird though. I guess that's just. We didn't think about stuff like that. And that hasn't been that long ago, but I think now you wouldn't do that, right? No, I would not. I just have it in my Beckett Maybe we did take it. Maybe I did have it in my Beckett Maybe I didn't. I don't think so, though. I think I did leave it in the car. Yu-Gi-Oh I think he did too. Which at a casino, of all places too. Right? But if you think about it like 18 national was only eight years ago. Yu-Gi-Oh that's right. And I think about how much you mean to me. And like, my wife adores you. Well, Julie's awesome. Well, she thinks you're awesome too. It's reciprocal. And like, if I ever say, hey, Andy's coming over, she's like, great, like, no problem. So it's this. I don't know, it. It seems like it's happened fast, but it doesn't feel like it's. I feel like I've known you a lot longer than that. More than eight years. Yu-Gi-Oh Time. Time flies. Like, I think YouTube has a way of. Of doing that. Like, it. I don't know, man. Like, I. I think I. I started my channel in, like, what was it, 2018 or something? 2017, even. Yu-Gi-Oh But it doesn't seem like that long ago. And I mean, nowadays, like, this is no joke. Like, there are people that probably put out three times as many videos in a year as I've put out total in, like, eight years ever. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Well, you still have the greatest name on YouTube. She blinded me with her fractures. Which is, of course, anomal homage to she blinded me with science. Right. And that's. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh And now has Garrett attempted to buy your name from you now that he's Refractor boy? Like, you know, has there been any negotiations there. There. There hasn't been, but there should be because, Yu-Gi-Oh he's really been killing it lately with the refractors on his channel, so I. I feel like it would almost be fitting for him to buy it. Maybe you can, like. You can kind of, like, broker a deal or something. I think I can work on that. I. I'll see what he's, you know, kind of gunning for. I need to. You can tell me a number off air that you're willing to accept, you know, no lower than. I mean, I think a mill. 2 mil for that name is pretty fair. I mean, he's. He's got Otani money, so, I mean. Right? Apparently. Yu-Gi-Oh What the audience doesn't know, what you guys don't know, is we chat. We. And I mean, we've done literally hundreds and hundreds of hours of chatting online over the last. Certainly since COVID Covid was big for. We were already good friends by Covid, like, really good friends by Covid. But we were able to just. We hung out all the time on. Online, on private chats. Yu-Gi-Oh I. I have done thousands and thousands of hours on Streamyard. Just most of it's. Most of it's not recorded. It's off the record. Almost all of it. And thank goodness that it's not recorded. We. We joke about that a lot. But your. Your evolution. I'll say this. I've. You know, you. You kind of had a period where you just said screw it, and you kind of sold almost all of your cards. Yu-Gi-Oh I pulled a Garrett. You pulled the Garrett? Yes. And then you pretty much stopped doing content for multiple years. Literally years. Yu-Gi-Oh You are a YouTube hall of Famer, by the way. I will point that out to everyone. That may not know that. I think you were a second year inductee. No, no, not second year. Said third year. Yu-Gi-Oh I wasn't. I wasn't good enough for the second year. Okay, but you were in. Whatever. Well, let's be honest. I wasn't good enough for the third year, but I got in somehow. But I snuck in. As dumb. As dumb as some people think the YouTube sports car hall of Fame is, you're allowed to have your opinion, but it's your peers voting for you so that, you know, matters to some degree in terms of how you were thought of in the community at the time. The community's changed a lot, hasn't it? Yes, it's changed a lot. I. I would. I would venture to say that probably most of the people that voted for me are probably not around anymore. That would be. I could actually. I actually have the voting results. I could go look. That would be fascinating to do. But no one else will care about it except you. Right? So we'll do that. That's. We'll do that some other time. Not bore everyone with that. But you. You sold all your cards, right? You basically stopped creating content completely. And what made you. I mean, you've come back, you're. You're doing reasonably regular videos, you're buying car. We went to the Dallas show and you bought a lot of cards. Like, you mean, Garrett were there and you. You left with cardboard. What changed? What. What made you go back? Well, I mean, you know, it really was never something that, like, I. It's not like I just started hating cards all of a sudden. I hated a lot of the stuff that was going on in Content, just in the industry part of it as a whole. And I don't know, man, like, sometimes when that stuff just gets to you, you just have to, like, step away for a little while. And as far as getting back into it, I don't really. I don't know what the exact moment was, but I. I've just kind of come in in a different way, I guess, to where, like, I just don't. I don't feel the need to buy, like, a bunch of expensive cards. Like, the cards that I like, the cards that I had before, most of them became expensive, but they weren't necessarily expensive when I bought them. So it's like, I never have been, like, somebody that just was like, oh, I have to buy expensive cards sometimes. It just turned out that they became expensive. And any expensive card that I ever did buy, it was usually because, like, I took money from cards that had Went up a lot and sold those. I just. I've never felt comfortable, like, just putting a ton of my own money in, you know? Oh. I want to take this moment to tell my favorite Andy story. Okay. Andy has no idea what I'm about to tell a story about. That's. That is 100 true. I'm scared. We were at the national. It was Chicago. I want to say, 19. You had the. I can even see on the Fleer where we were standing, and you had the opportunity to buy a Star Jordan. And this is a trade. It was going to be a trade. A trade. Yes. To be fair. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And the dealer, it was. I. I can still picture the guy's face. I have no idea what his name is, but he was one of those guys that ran around the Fleer and just kind of. He was flipping stuff all over the place, you know? Just felt like he never. He didn't have a table, I don't think. Or if he did, he was never there. And he. You were gonna trade for a Star Jordan, and this was pre Star Jordan craziness that is current right now. Do you remember what you were going to trade? Because I don't. I have video proof of it on one of my national videos. I did not go research this. So do you remember what you were going to trade? I think I had some Ronald Acunia stuff. I'm trying to think of what else that I had that he was interested in. I think the. The Star Jordan at that time, I want to say it was probably like, maybe 8 or $9,000 is how much it was, because I can remember the card. It was like a BGS7, I think. Was it the 101 or the. No. Yu-Gi-Oh it was the 101. Yu-Gi-Oh Which I think that card probably, like $60,000 now, but I. You know, I don't remember exactly what the trade was going to be, but he. This. So this guy, he worked for another dealer. I don't think these were necessarily his cards. He was kind of just going around and making deals for. Younger guy, too, I remember. Yu-Gi-Oh He had long hair, like. Yu-Gi-Oh Remember? Yu-Gi-Oh Glasses. I don't. I. No. It would be interesting to see what the trade was going to be, because I don't remember. But anyways, he, like. I. I made the offer, and he took the offer back to, you know, the guy that owned the card, I guess, and he came back and just. I guess he just didn't want to do it. And I wish he would have. That was where I was going. That's why? It's one of my favorite Andy stories. Because you have an uncanny ability that I love the way you're. I love your card taste that you buy things that most people ignore. You were buying cool presidents cards, you know, and you know, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison and you know, non sports kind of stuff before that became really cool and that, that had its period in the sun and then you know you were buying tattoo or you did a tattoo orbit set you, you know, when nobody was thinking about tattoo orbits, you know. Well, I, I did George C. Millers. Yu-Gi-Oh you're thinking of Dave. Dave had the time. I am thinking of Dave tattoo orbits. You did George C. Miller. That's an awesome set. But I would love to do that one. But I. Outside of that Jordan story though, I think kind of where I've always tried to Blue Ice I try to go where the money is not at the moment, you know, because it. I like to buy cards that I like, but I like to buy cards when they're low and then if they get to a certain point then maybe trade them for something else that maybe I Goldin just buy outright. I love that you. I've always operated that way. You know, you sell stuff though. I mean you're. If look, there's a point where you go this is too expensive for me to keep this. You know that happened with that maze. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I mean even. That was a Dallas show sale, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Even with the crazy prices now like that maze. They. They paid me more for that maze right then than what it is today even. And that's insane with the way things are right now. It was, it was back when alt was going around just buying everything like when they first got started. I remember that, that day it was you, me and Moeller Dallas show more you and Mueller. I was just hanging out and you had out all your cards at basically fu prices like you know, if you want to pay it, great. And I think you enjoyed. I love watching you have conversations with guys. You love talking to people. Yu-Gi-Oh This is sitting here being an Andy. I'm just, you know, giving all these props to Andy show. I know my head is just right, but all of it's true and which is what makes me like you. Like I just enjoy being around you. It's just easy, you know, we don't, I don't know, we don't collect the same. So it's not like we're competing for cards or. But we genuinely like. I just genuinely like being around you. I think you're an Amazing. I mean, we've obviously. We've obviously collected some of the same stuff over the years. There has been some, you know, overlap. Yu-Gi-Oh but Yu-Gi-Oh but Yu-Gi-Oh that was never like. That was never like, what built our friendship was like that we collected the same set or the same players or anything like that. It was, it's always been different. But those, Those Dallas shows were really fun for me to set up at because I just liked. I just liked being set up. Like, like you said, I had my stuff priced to keep. But if somebody, you know, like that deal with the, the maze and the, the Hank Aaron, I mean, they just, you know, people say they're paying strong, that nobody's paying. Like, those guys were then, like, I mean, it was. And the funny thing is they took those cards, they listed them for sale at auction on Alt, like the very next week, and they sold them for, like, I think twenty five hundred dollars less than what they paid. Can't hide money, as our friend Eric would say. Yu-Gi-Oh they were like, it was nuts. But, you know, what are you gonna do? Do you have any favorite Mike stories? Well, I mean, a Dallas show, like, you're, you're so sick and you're at the Dallas show and we're. We're over there set up. And I know at one point, like, you, you crawled underneath the table. You were sleeping under the table. Somebody had came over there. They were. Matt did. Matt Galvin, who is now called Straight Race Cards. He's got his own channel. Was that Matt? Yu-Gi-Oh Okay. Well, I mean, I met Matt at the last Dallas show, but I guess I didn't know him then. And I can't remember if he came to give you a card or he was showing me a T206 he had bought or something. But anyways, like, he basically handed it to me and then I handed it to you under the table. Like, you didn't even get up from underneath the table. You looked at it and then hand it back to me. And that was. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, I have no idea why you were at that show. You were obviously way too sick to be there. Well, Dave Berg had flown in, okay, with. Why did I just go blank on his son's name? Kaden. Kaden. What's wrong? Dave and Kaden had flown in and I. They were staying at My House and I wasn't about to not take him to the show and try, you know, you want to show your friends a good time and like, Yu-Gi-Oh I was dead to the world. But what's, you know, you had the skirt Coming down the table, right? And I'm. I'm just under there and every once in a while you'd kick me, make sure I was alive. And it was. That was so funny. Well, it's not feeling good. I, I do remember Dave and Kaden being there, but I just didn't. I guess I didn't remember that it was that show. Yu-Gi-Oh they were staying with me that weekend, which was why that was. I had to go. I had to take them. They didn't have a way to get there. So. Yu-Gi-Oh that was, that was rough. But I mean, some of the other stories, like just, you know, just how, like you've, you've had so many of us over to your house. Like, I remember the one time it was me and Josh that stayed there and we went to the show with you and stuff like that. Like. Yu-Gi-Oh all these. And, you know, we've went to the Burbank show. We'd stayed with Josh out there. I mean. Yu-Gi-Oh all kinds of, you know, fun stuff. And then of course, you know, like just all the, all the stuff on the stream yard, stuff that's not recorded, you know, like all those nights. I mean, we have an Absolute just blast on there. Like that would be YouTube Gold if it was ever put out there. But obviously it one-of-one be. Most people will believe this, probably, especially if you know me, but it's usually a lot of making fun of me or. And my com. What do I, what do I say, Andy? Why do I even come to these things? I don't even come on these things. But other Mike, Canadian Mike takes a lot of heat too. We have a lot of fun with him. We. We all take it at some point, right? Yu-Gi-Oh it's, it's, it's. It's like if you're, if you're not getting crap from somebody in our group, it's like, you know, are you mad at me or what? You know, what's the deal? Why aren't you making fun of me? I don't feel loved. Yu-Gi-Oh it's, that's, that's the kind of deal. It's, it's almost like a fraternity type atmosphere for old guys. Well, tell me what you're collecting now. Like, what are your. Now that you're kind of buying cards again, what kind of stuff are you looking for? What do you. What, what piques your interest right now? Well, so lately most of the stuff that I've been buying is like stuff from the 90s, you know, some Griffeys, I think, at the Dallas Show, I bought like, some Griffeys, some Jordans, some Bonds. I've been buying some of the. The 98 Upper Deck retro, the Quantum Leap cards, which I think you probably had a Juan Gonzalez at at one point. Right? I did. I saw your Sosa and McGuire combo. That was pretty awesome. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I thought that was a pretty cool pairing. You know, a couple of cheaters that hit a lot of home runs. But those. I mean, of course, like, we didn't care back then. We knew they were cheating, but we didn't. Nobody cared. No, nobody cared. It was so glorious. Who cared? Yu-Gi-Oh And now everybody cares. Yu-Gi-Oh They saved baseball, so it's like, you know, it's easy to look back at stuff and criticize it now, but, Yu-Gi-Oh back then, no one cared. We knew all of them were cheating. There were a couple things post strike, which, by the way, we might have that again. So probably. Yu-Gi-Oh this is why this is a good topic. You know, strike happened in 94, and then what happened in late 95? You had Ripken, you know, breaking Lou Gehrig's record. Right. Consecutive games played. That was the beginning of saving baseball. People cared and wanted to watch. But then McGuire Sosa took it to another level because it. I can imagine that that summer, and I remember it distinctly, was sim. The only thing I could compare it to is maybe 1941, when DiMaggio was on his hitting streak. Right. And people would. Would ask, hey, did Joe get one today? You know, that was. And you knew what they were talking about. You didn't have. You have to be a baseball person necessarily. And it was the same. I mean, they would break into network television to show McGuire at bats and Sosa at bats at the peak of the summer and towards the end of the season as they were chasing home run record. And it was a big freaking deal. Like, Nationwide. It was a big deal. And everybody knew, oh, did Mark hit one today? Did Sammy hit one today? Because they were neck and neck and, you know, Mark kind of pulled away, But Sammy hit 66, I guess. Is that right? Is that fair? Yu-Gi-Oh Now that. That is an awesome one that you brought up, but that is not the one that I was thinking of, actually, because when I think about it, it always reminds me of one of my favorite baseball movies. Probably one of yours, too, 61. It reminds me of, like, Maris and Mantle going back and forth for the. For the home run crayon that year. You know, like they're trying to break the record. And I. I mean, I think it's just so cool. Now, looking back at that time period, because I don't think we actually realized how big of a deal it was as it's happening. That's just kind of, you know, the way we tend to be. Like, you don't realize it in the moment, but you look back and you're like, damn, that was cool. And things become. Go from you know, just normal day to day life to legend. Right. And that, that's what sports does. That's one of the actually most beautiful things about sports, is those memories. And unless you live through it, these kids today have no idea what a true home run race like that. What I mean, you got to remember 62 was a absolutely, you know, like, untouchable thing. Like, it had so much prestige, it had so much behind it. It had been the record since 61, you know, and it had been the record longer than Ruth had the record. Right. So I don't know. There's a lot of math involved there, but. Right. Maybe not. So Ruth did it in 27, Maris broke it in 61. So what's that? 30, 34. 34 years. 61 to 98. That's 37 years. Yu-Gi-Oh you're right. That's crazy. I seem to remember that. I seem to. I. But I. I'm glad we did the math to make sure we were right on that. That I was right on that. So it had been around a long time. It was a magical number. That's. That's baseball. No, like, no other sport has magical numbers. Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. That's. I, I still, man, that is crazy to even think about that. There was longer in between. Okay, that's. Yu-Gi-Oh All right. Interesting. Name five baseball records. Or name a baseball. We'll just go back and forth a minute. Baseball records that'll never be broken. You can go first. Cy young with the wins. 512. Yu-Gi-Oh That's never. That's never gonna be. And some people are gonna say, no, he's. He only has 511, but I think they added a one-of-one to his total. After going back and looking at some stats, I think he has 512. I not even going to look at Baseball Reference to check myself. I think, I think either way, it's safe. Yu-Gi-Oh 500 wins is totally safe. Speaking of pitchers, 5714 is never getting broken. Strikeouts by Nolan Ryan, career. Okay, that's a good one. I. I'm gonna say DiMaggio's hit streak. I mean, what's the closest anybody got? Was it Pete Rose Since DiMaggio? Rose got to 44 I think something like that. Yu-Gi-Oh That's still a long way from. That's two weeks away from 56 almost. Yu-Gi-Oh And I mean I don't even know like what the longest hitting streak is these days. Like, I mean does anybody ever even get to like 25? Yu-Gi-Oh I mean if they get in the 20s, that's a big deal, right? I mean. Yu-Gi-Oh And it's usually the Luis Arias is of the world. It's not, you know, the focus on home run hitting has dampened the just the art of hitting period. And to me I always thought the goal was to get on base. Now it's not. It feels very counterintuitive to my old school brain. Yu-Gi-Oh Let's see. I don't think anyone will ever hit 400 again. I think that's probably true. Ricky Henderson. Yu-Gi-Oh Basis 100. No one is ever stealing over a thousand bases again. Maybe even like Barry Bonds intentional walk record. Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that's stupid. I mean remember that no. 3 like shoot, he got walked with the bases loaded for crying out loud. Multiple times. Yu-Gi-Oh we'll take, we'll, we'll allow a run better than four. You know I, I think all strikeout records for hitters are in play for sure. Those could be broken and I think, you know somebody could have a career where they hit a lot of doubles and beat you know, Trish Speaker's record. Although it would be a phenomenal feat. I'm thinking of just big records. But, but that's cool that baseball has numbers that you just know. You know Ted Williams hit 406 in 1941. You know, you know what I mean, you just. There are just numbers that stick with it. Stick with you. Yu-Gi-Oh And I mean like if I was ranking my favorite sports, like I would have basketball number one and then baseball would probably be number two for me. But the history of baseball is second to none of the like it's just so much richer and deeper than any other of the major sports. And you just have more like legendary players. Which I think is why with baseball cards the vintage stuff does so much better than like football and basketball. Would you agree with that? I would totally agree with that. There's so many even player what's so great? Baseball's so good that there are players that were absolutely amazing that most people have never heard of. Especially dead ball era and through the 30s probably. Does anybody talk about Jimmy Foxx really or Jimmy Foxx? When he retired he was second all time in home runs to Ruth. Like it was a Big deal. A guy like Harry Hallman or Archie Vaughn or these players that were just absolutely amazing and listening to the baseball 100 as I am right now, I'm getting to hear about a lot of these players that are in that group that. Pisnanski, Pzanski, Puznanski. God, I can't pronounce that right ever. The authority tells these great stories, and I'm. I'm so enjoying it. And I'm. I'm. You know, when I hear whoever the next is, I'm not looking ahead at who's where, and the next player will come up. And I'm doing it via audiobook, and I'm like, oh, I have cards of that. What cards do I have of that player? You know, and that connection. Right. Okay. This is one of the greatest hundred players according to this guy. Do I have cart? Do I. You know, how is he represented in my collection? You know, what do I have of him? Yu-Gi-Oh I listened to. I think maybe this was like the last episode of this that you did with Leighton, where you were. You guys were talking about. Is the hobby too top heavy? Yu-Gi-Oh As far as the players being collected, I totally agree with that. Like, it. You go. You go to a card show and there's like 10 to 15 names that, like, most of the people there are looking for. And I think there. There are just so many of these kind of like just hidden treasures out there for the taking that you can get at really great prices. Right. In comparison, if people would look beyond those 10 or 15 names, I think they could easily find that. Right. Whether it's on your favorite, like, know the history of your team, you know, if you're a Cincinnati Reds fan or a Detroit Tigers fan or whatever, there's so much history there that if you're unaware of it, it would probably behoove you to go learn it. And then you could buy cards of those players that you learn about. That's. That's called collecting. Right. That. To me, that's the definition of it. And there's always the chicken and the egg question with sports cards. Do you forget about the reality that so many people that are in sports cards today could give two craps about sports? That's just true, unfortunately. But for me, I. I loved the sport first, and then came the cards. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, so we. We mentioned this earlier when I was collecting the George C. Miller set. One of the primary reasons that I collected that set was because there was no Ruth and no Garrick. I Goldin afford those guys. I knew that going in. So I was like, you know, I wanted to collect a set from that era. I wanted it to be, like, a really challenging type of set. You know, stuff that was kind of hard to find, but it didn't have those two guys, because if it did, there's no way I ever would have even attempted that, because. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh There's no way I could have afforded those guys. I remember the first few Dallas shows that I went to back right out. You know, it was really during COVID that they reopened shows. And I remember getting chastised by so many people because I hated wearing a mask. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm not wearing a mask. If I don't have to wear a Mosaic not wearing a mask. You know, it is what it is. And I think I got Covid three times, and I would have gotten Covid three times whether I wore a mask or not. And we all know this now, but we didn't know it then. What? Funny. Just a side note. I'll let you continue. But funny side note, I was at that show. I wore a mask. I also got covet. Right. So. But I remember what I'm. Where I'm going with that is walking around and seeing 32 US caramels, 1932 US cameras. Well, I think. Which I think are. Is a great. It's probably the greatest, ugliest set ever. They're awesome. Yu-Gi-Oh And they're. They're fantastic. And at the time, they were very underappreciated. You could buy three or a four, Garrig or Ruth for a thousand bucks or less. Like, it was not. That's. That was. It's expensive, but it's not. Not like it is now. And I remember going, I need to buy these cards right now. And not doing it. I. I remember they were at multiple. Like, now I can't even find them. They're all, you know, locked away now. They were, I wouldn't say prevalent, but they. There were multiples at each show. And being the dumb person that I was, you know, I was probably buying a Juan Soto rookie or something at the time, because I was being convinced that he's going to be the next great thing. And I should have bought the. I can still see it at the table. I can see them, and I didn't buy them. And I'm like, those are. I. I remember the regrets more than I remember the great buys, you know? Well, I think, you know, people that have. That have came into the hobby within, like, let's say the last six years. Like, let's just say people from 2020 to now, they don't seem, I mean, like, it's not their fault, but they don't understand the way things used to be. Like Babe Ruth Goudies were pretty much the same price for like 10 to 15 years. You know, maybe they went a little up or down here or there, but nothing crazy. So people that were around during that time, we didn't feel this like fomo, you know, that we had to pick up something right now because we always knew we could get it next year, the year after, or the year after for pretty much the same price. And that's one of the things that's totally changed that was true of all car. Like there was no sense of urgency because, oh, you know, I'll get that next year or whatever. It'll still be here and it'll still be, you know, within a couple hundred dollars of what it is today. Right. And that changed Covid. Changed all of that. And I don't know that it'll ever. I. Welcome to the new normal. You know, I think we're there. Yu-Gi-Oh And I think that's, that's one of the things that I guess, like during the two years or so that I wasn't really buying really hardly anything. I. I kept waiting and waiting for that to maybe kind of go back to the way it was. And I just don't think that's going to happen. So I pretty much had to decide, like, you know, am I just willing to accept that this is the new normal because things aren't going to go back to the way they were. So I have to either be okay with that or I'm just done. And I didn't want to be done forever. Yu-Gi-Oh but you found a way to enjoy the hobby. And the thing I love most about any channel, if you're out there making a channel, like the thing that I think people can resonate with the most is sharing passion, is conveying passion. And you do that when you show your cards and your, you know, your Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa UD3, you know, sparkly, whatever number to 50. I can A, think the card is cool and B, think the card is cool because of the way you're describing it and then what it means to you and why you love it and why you bought it. And there. I think the YouTube world doesn't do that as much anymore. It's. It's rare that you see that. And even if it, if you do, I'll Admit even on my channel. It's not like I do that every video. Right. That's not my entire. Yu-Gi-Oh Is that I do that a lot and maybe probably more than most. But, you know, I want a card tonight. I can't wait to get it. They want to spoil it, but it's a card I've been looking for for a long time. And I've been watching it on. This is the thing, man. Patience matters, right? In the hobby. And I was. Well, I'll just tell you, it's a. It's a Ricky Henderson autograph, right? And okay, it's a five star that I've been looking for for a long time. And I've had one on my watch list forever at a buy it now price that I thought was absurd. And it was the only one and they rarely come up. And it was. Yu-Gi-Oh it was like, let's say I think it was a 300 buy it now and I one-of-one one tonight on auction. I put in a snipe of 230something. I was willing to pay for it, and I one-of-one it for 190. Like a full hundred plus dollars less. You say, well, it's just a hundred dollars. Well, that's not how I think. That's not how I think a lot of collectors think. We think I want to get it as cheap as I can because that's more money for the next card, right? And I, I like getting good deal. I like feeling like I got a good deal. I may not be getting a good deal, but I just want to feel like it for a moment. And that felt like a victory. And it was patience. I didn't just buy the buy it now at 300. I said, you know what? It's not like these are now. Oh, here's the funny thing. The 300 was a regular base card, five star autograph. No numbering like it was just a base auto. The one I one-of-one was graded and it was numbered to five. And I want it for a hundred plus dollars left. Yu-Gi-Oh that's. I've. I've always been just a huge proponent of trying as much as possible to wait for a card to come to auction. Because the buy it now is, man, people like you said, that card had been sitting there for how long? A couple years, actually. So what does that tell you? That no one wants to pay that. Right? It's not, it's not worth that much to anyone. Not just you, Anyone. Right. Everyone that wanted that card has seen it as an option to buy. So why, why don't buyer okay, this, let me ask you, this drives me nuts. I love that we're just totally winging all of this. Yu-Gi-Oh this is totally why. If I'm a seller and I have a card on there for a few months, why on earth wouldn't you lower the price if obviously no one's buying it at this price, make it that price minus X, take it down 10% or something. I, I don't know why this perpetual recycling of buy it now is at whatever price they think they should be able to sell it for happens. I don't know if they don't change. I mean, I think it's, I think it's stubbornness because most people, they don't want to take a loss on anything. And you dare, you never take a loss until you sell it. So even though they probably, even though they know they're probably not going to ever get that number, they still haven't had to like actually take the loss until they sell it for less than what they paid. You know, that's my theory anyways. You know, this is another thing that people. I, I wish that there was more content like this of guys. Just like, I hope people watching this, I hope you guys leave comments a if you want to see more stuff like this because I know where Andy lives. I can get him on the show again. And if you guys like just two dudes sitting around literally shooting the bull and talking about whatever comes up. Everything feels so scripted and it feels so, you know, agenda based. Like I need to get this point across or I need to make, give my hot take or, or talk about this particular news of the day. It's never just dudes sitting around BSing about cards and maybe because it's boring to most people. I don't know. This is, this is the kind of stuff though that we would talk about if we weren't recording. That's right. So if people, if, if people want authentic stuff and they just want to see what people are really like, Yu-Gi-Oh there would be more of this type of, of content. Well, good thing that I, I think people that'll enjoy this are, are the ones I want watching it, if that makes sense. Like, I don't, I, if I had 200 people watch this and really love it, that's better than 10,000 people watching it and you know, being bored or like don't patch auto if you don't, if you're bored, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh it's always been my take, but I think there's enough people, I think that we'll get Some comments, Andy. I think there will be some people chiming in that they enjoy this kind of stuff, because why? Because we enjoy it. And they're just like us. They're. You know, deep down, there's so many collectors out there that are like us, and they just want to, you know, we. They would be in on the conversation. They'd be like, I bet they probably have been screaming, Yu-Gi-Oh I agree. Or. Or no, I don't. I don't agree with that. And here's what I think, you know, and that's what just fun card talk is supposed to be, right? They'll. They'll just be happy that. That I wasn't on here, like, reading off fake ads. Do you have any prepared for tonight, by the way? I don't have anything prepared. My. Yu-Gi-Oh some of those sponsorships have ran out, so I've got to get some new ones. Well, my legit sponsor is AuctionWire. Yu-Gi-Oh And so I would tell you guys, if you're looking for cards, no matter what, go check out Auction Noir. Yu-Gi-Oh There will be a link down below. And you can use my code word Goldin age to get two months for free. I am contractually obligated to say that. Andy, I apologize. That was good. I like that. That was a good ad read. Like, did you have that in front of you or you just, like, just right off the dome? Completely off the dome. No prep needed. But I do love Auction Wire, so that makes it easy, actually. Yu-Gi-Oh maybe. Maybe someday I'll get a real sponsor because I don't really like any of the companies that I've been talking about. They're pretty rough. The funny thing would be to do your ad reads and throw in a real one like that. There's a legit company that has paid you to talk about them and. But you'd have to preface with them like, hey, dude, this is going to be in the middle of crazy, so I hope you're okay with that. And I would do the. I would do the real one first, you know, and then we could get to the fake stuff. Okay, that's fair. Who would you like? All right, you could have a sponsor. Who would it be? Like, seriously, if you could have anyone and they would pay you money, that would make sense to you to be a sp of your channel. You. I mean, a lot of these fake companies are not that far off from some of the real ones. So the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Is that what you're saying? Yu-Gi-Oh I. I could almost, like, put up a disclaimer because, Yu-Gi-Oh a lot of these, they're. They're a little bit exaggerated, but some of them aren't too far off from, like, real ones. As hard as that is to believe. It would definitely. Well, I don't know. I probably shouldn't say, because maybe someday somebody will give me the bag. You know, my favorite videos that you're doing right now, and I hope you continue to do them, is looking at your old PSA orders. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh like, because you did a ton of them back in the day. I mean, you were doing PSA orders a lot. And to go back through and revisit, here's what I paid for this card, here's how. Here's how much it cost me to grade it, and here's what it would be worth today. I think that is just a fascinating, you know, kind of look through history, right? It is. It is fascinating, yet sometimes painful. It can be comical to see. Like, I mean, especially the ones from, like, 2020. I mean, those would just look funny because some of those cards, I mean, you know, because I, you know, like, like, everybody out there, I submitted some Gavin Luxes and Luis Roberts and, you know, whoever else, like, probably tons of NBA guys that probably weren't even in the league by the time I got them back. Before. Before we go, what I was gonna ask you, like, because since we're talking about psa, like, what is the longest that you've ever waited to get cards back? Maybe 10 months, something like that. I. I was just noticing this the other day because I had honestly forgotten about this and how ridiculous it was, but I did a video probably, like, I don't know, maybe four years ago, some. Somewhere around that time frame, but it took them 522 days to get them back to me. That's a minute. I mean, that could have had two birthdays by the time you got your cards back. If it. That is timed right, that is a year and a half. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that. That one. I need to revisit that one for sure, because that was somewhat egregious. I don't know that we're far off from that being the reality again. Okay, so what. I mean, I have thoughts on the whole grading thing, and I'm sure you probably do, too, but, like, one of the things that I find fascinating, and it kind of upsets me a little bit, and it does. It's something that I don't think a lot of people have really talked about. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that. And I saw this because, like, I guess you Know Boston Card Hunter, right? You've had him on Nick. I don't know him, but I've watched some of his stuff. But he. I guess he talked to, like, somebody that has been a grader there, and he said that he's. They start him off at 25 or $26 an hour, which that is. That blows my mind that it's that low in Southern California, by the way. Well, regardless of where it is, because if they're looking at these cards for, like, 30 seconds, that means they're grading over a hundred cards in an hour. So an hour's worth of labor where they're creating thousands and thousands of dollars in revenue for the company, thousands and thousands of dollars for the customer in value. They're getting paid enough to almost be able to submit one card to PSA that's at the lowest rate that they don't even have right now. So for every 100 cards you grade, you could submit one, if that's what you wanted to do with your salary. Well, Yu-Gi-Oh And if you think about it, let's say PSA is getting 30 bucks a car. Let's say there's no up charges in that order. Or what? They're just all standard grading, bulk order, whatever. Right? 30 bucks a card. Well, PSA just made $3,000, and they're paying the person who did the work 25 bucks for that same hour. It seems a little unfair. I'm just throwing it out there. And all these grading companies, like, they've made excuses for years and years. Oh, we can't find graders. Maybe think about paying them. I mean, would you want to look at 100 cards an hour for $25? And to say, well, we can't make any. Or, like, how much BS would it be if they said, Yu-Gi-Oh well, we can't pay them more because it's not worth it to us. Dude, we can do the math, right? We. It's. If you paid them $100 an hour, you'd still be making 20 $900 on just the base level, not counting, you know, upcharges and all of that that you steal money from people from. Because I think upcharges are terrible. But, Yu-Gi-Oh it's ridiculous. No wonder. 100 bucks an hour. You get the right people, by the way. Exactly. One other thing I'll say about them, too, is, like, this problem. This is not a new problem. It's just amplified as things have heated up in the hobby. But they've always had this problem, right? And during this time period where the Hobby's been heating up. Instead of focusing on what you're there to do, which is grade cards, you decided, well, we can't. We can't figure out how to do this one company of grading cards better. So let's buy sgc. Let's buy Beckett. Let's start grading comic books. Let's start a marketplace. Let's start a repack, all this other stuff instead of focusing on grading cards in a timely manner. Yu-Gi-Oh Let's not do the thing we're actually supposed to be the best at that we really suck at. And, Yu-Gi-Oh what sucks is both you and I love grading cards. Like, we love sending in cards. I do. And I do, too. And I've got a giant stack over here. I'm just like, no, I'm just not. But I don't like waiting for, like, six to eight months to get them back. And, I mean, I'm honestly, like, it's. Even though I've been in cards for this long, and it still surprises me that people put up with this, that we all still put up with this. Like, we live in an era where you can order something on Amazon, it'll be at your front door in, like, four hours. You can order groceries, they'll be here in half an hour. You can order food, it'll be here in half an hour. And we're still having to wait six to eight months to get a card graded in 20. 26. Yu-Gi-Oh it's. It's a mystery. There's no excuse for. Does seem a little bass ackwards. Dude, you and I could talk for, like, four hours, which. And we have many times. Yu-Gi-Oh But for the sake of the audience, let's. You know, we'll Zebra them. We'll Zebra them the rest of the three and a half hours or three hours. We've gone almost an hour. Dude, thanks for this conversation. Thank you. Thanks for being an awesome friend, too. Sincerely. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh You as well, man. As well. I mean, like, one last thing I'll say because, like, I. I know this is not exactly, like, we. We had already been friends before this, but one of the. One of the things that, like, really, I think brought us a lot closer as friends was, like, we. You know, we'd been friends for maybe, like. Oh, man, I don't know, maybe like a year or two back when my dad passed away. And I just remember, especially, like, you and Eric, like, I remember talking to both of you guys about it, you know, quite a bit during that time. I wasn't. I didn't know the other guys as well at that time, or, you know, I would have talked to those guys too, but. But, Yu-Gi-Oh like, Yu-Gi-Oh you guys were. You know, you guys were really there for me during that time period. And, you know, that just kind of solidified things with me that, like, you know, these. These dudes are not just guys that I know through cards. And these are. These are real friends. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I'll always. I'll always be grateful for that. And, Yu-Gi-Oh I'm glad I was there for you. Yu-Gi-Oh And I would be there today. I'm not even going to say it. How much? Not gonna do it. It's too cheesy. All right. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Too much glazing. There's too much glazing going on. Yu-Gi-Oh we're. It's getting a little too weird in here. Yu-Gi-Oh we gotta get out of here. But, guys, thanks so much for watching. Thanks for listening this week, as you do every week. We will catch you soon for another episode. Welcome back, Andy, to the world of the living. I don't know why. I don't know why I even come to these things. See you guys later. Keep collecting.