Heritage's Controversial Auction + Who Really Owns These Cards? + Darren Rovell Joins

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. What is up everybody? Welcome to episode number 320 of Sports Cards Live. It is Saturday night, July 11th to 2026. My name is Jeremy Lee. I am so happy to be here with you tonight. Guys. I will be back here tomorrow night. Fanatics weekly auction ending watch party is back here on the channel. Also streaming live to Fanatics Collect Collect originals. We got a giveaway going on tomorrow night. By the way those of you who are here early enough to to hear this. We're doing a 200 giveaway for a card worth $200. Don't know what it is yet. We're going to buy it tomorrow and someone in the Fanatics Collect audience is going to win that. That is tomorrow night. You can also watch it here on YouTube. Guys, Leighton Sheldon will be joining us shortly and he's always looking to buy your vintage collections. Reach out to Leighton at Leighton just collect.com his company auction wire. His and his partner's company Auction Wire. Great sponsor here of Sports Cards Live. Go to auction wire AI and and you can use promo code SCL for 60 days of free trial. And I'll just let you guys know. Go watch the Midlife Card Chase over on the Sports Card Clubhouse. Greg and David did a great job talking about Auction Wire on that this morning. Guys. Mint Inc. Does still deliver the ultimate hobby experience. From live whatnot streams and auctions to grading breaks and two full retail stores in the greater Toronto area. They do it all. They're buying collections seven days a week. Click the link in the description below. Use promo code SCL5 to get 5% off your first purchase. Shop online anytime with worldwide Shipping Mint Inc. Where collecting comes to life. And guys, the front row card show is in Seattle. Tacoma this weekend, July 11th and 12th of 480 tables. Visit frontrow cardshow.com for more show dates and locations. And guys, how about Mr. Minty grading is Expensive ties up your time, money and assets. When you can get it, get it right with Mr. Minty offering a full line of 100% substance free. Let me repeat 100% substance free and pre grading supplies, grading preparation, evaluation services, concierge drop off and pick up with PSA and bgs. All designed to help collectors save time and money in the expensive grading process. You can meet Mr. Minty in person coming up at Fanatics Festival, the West Coast Card show and the national in the New Dealer section upstairs. For more information, go to mrminty.com save20 on products using promo code SCL25. Happy collecting and keep it minty CIA auctions guys, the July auction is live. It's amazing and it ends tomorrow. Visit Collector Investor Auctions.com to register and bid for their monthly auction auctions. And if you would like to sell cards on ebay, you want to skip the hassle? Reach out to me directly. I'm the Prairies Provinces affiliate in Canada for slab sharks. Reach out to me directly. You can DM me J. Lee underscore sportscards live or email me Jeremy slab sharks.com this episode is also brought to you by Upper Deck, the Sport Card Expo, inferno Red Technologies, Comc.com and Card Ladder. We have a Card Ladder affiliate link in the description below. And guys, these episodes are available on podcast, Apple, Spotify. Wherever you listen to your podcast, leave a rating review. It's all free. Huge. Thank you as always to all of our loyal viewers and listeners. If you're not yet subscribed, take a moment and do so. And as always, your comments and your questions to the extent we can keep up, will be in play. You know what else is in play? Mr. David Chase. What's up David Chase? What's up Jeremy Lee? How you doing, sir? I'm doing good, buddy. I'm doing good. Nice job with Greg on the midlife car chase over on the Sports Card Clubhouse. Was watching most of that video today. Always a treat to see a couple of my good buddies creating some content together. We did. We did the Hangover. The Hangover is exclusive sports cards live content only on only on the Sports Card Clubhouse YouTube channel. If you're not subscribed over there yet, guys, go ahead and do that as well. We we did the Hangover. We dropped for the first time. For the first time, the Hangover had to be separated into two parts. Did you enjoy? I thought the episode was fun. How about you? Oh, I had a great time and I love the thumbnails on these ones too, with Josh running in the background. But when did you realize that it was going to be a two, a two episode show? Was it at minute 58 or were you realiz at like a minute at 40? You know, where were you? Yeah, I was like at an hour 10. I'm like, yeah, we want to keep these under an hour. We'll just split this. We'll just split this one into two. Let's go for another 15 or 20 minutes. But we had a good time. We had a good time with that. I'm also doing exclusive content over on Fanatics live app in the Collect originals. We have the Hunt. As I mentioned sort of already. We are also doing, you know, Fanatics is, is giving me a giveaway budget, 200 a week. And we kind of scoped out some items to potentially buy and give away tomorrow night. So on Thursdays we're scoping them out. Sunday nights we're going to give them away. You have to be on the Fanatics app and you need an account in order to win because I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy it, I'm gonna pay for it with the credit that Fanatics gave me and then I'm gonna transfer it to the winners Fanatics vault and then you can take delivery or do whatever you want with it. So. But those having some fun. I finally, David, I finally feel like I've got that new software down. No technical difficulties the last couple of shows. Have you been able to find me on Collect Originals? It took me 20 minutes. No, I'm now able. I now got it down. Okay, everybody that's trying to find the replay of the Hunt, it takes a few times and then you start to realize how to get to it. But man, you're getting better and better at that show. By the way, the Hunt is like this last episode was my favorite one you've done so far. So check out the replay. I want to say something though about these auction houses. They're annoying me because these last auctions are crazy. And they're doing this to me right before the national, you know, and like the Fanatics, the, the Fanatics premiere that's coming up that I've been scoping out the CIA. There's just like five auctions and I wait for these cards all year to try to find and there's like six of them that I really, really want. That's going to be like, if I really go for them, there goes my entire national budget. And, and it's very, very frustrating that these auction houses are putting them out right before the national. Why are they doing that to us? Well, as you're speaking, I'm thinking, are you misdirecting the blame at the auction houses or should you direct some blame at your fellow collectors or investors or flippers who are trying to raise money for the national? And they're doing that by listing these cards for sale with these various auction companies. So, I mean, the auction companies are just there to, to, to help people liquidate cards and generate capital. So. But I hear you. It's kind of more fun, I guess, to blame the auction houses than it is to blame our fellow friends and collectors. So I hear you. Yeah, dude. I mean, it's the same thing with me. There's. There's so much money to be spent before the national. What's going to be left for the national? I mean, I find myself not looking certain places because I don't want to blow the budget. Right. So how are you. It's actually an interesting topic because we can't be the only two that are dealing with this. How are you going about managing your budget for the next three weeks? Let's say I'm having a panic attack and I'm slowly getting through it. But one of the things I'm doing, actually, that goes right into this segment is that on Midlife on Greg's channel, we're doing this card show on Monday, live show on Greg. I know, Jeremy, you have some cards on there, and this is kind of what my thought is. You know, it's like, man, there's a lot of cards I want to buy, and my budget is getting less and less as each auction goes through. So if I sell a few cards and be able to replenish some of my budget, I'm going to go for it. But there's a chance I'm going to have no money at the national, and I'm just going to be hanging on with my friends and walking through it, which I really hope doesn't happen. I really is way more fun when you have some spending money. What would you. If you found, like a card that you love and it took up a huge portion of your national budget, would you do it or would you just not buy it and. Wait, what's your thought there? No, I mean, if it's a card that I. That's on my list. That's. If it's a card I really want. If it's the right copy for me, I'll buy it and then I'll, I'll just tap into the, the rainy day fund at the N. For the National. Like, I'm not, I'm not going to go to the national without, without some spending money. Like, I'll figure it out. I, I'll, I'll pay. I'll. I don't know, I'll borrow against my retirement. I'll take out a heloc. I'll, I don't know, maybe I'll steal money from the family savings account and, you know, come back and deal with the consequences when I get home. I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe the banks foreclosed on my house, which can't happen, thankfully. You know, maybe the cars are no longer in the driveway, which also I don't think can happen. They're, they're outright owned. So I don't know. I think, I think I'm pretty insulated from any, any repercussions. But, but I'll figure it out, buddy. I'll figure it out because you. I can't. I'm not going to the National. Not buying cards. It's just, I, I mean, there, there is a part of me, I mean, there, there's some cards that are, would be like the largest purchase that I've ever made on a card that are at auction right now that I am in love with. And it's just scaring me a little bit when I think that way because I'm like, that's going to really make the national not as much fun. So if I sell some cards on Monday, great. And if I don't, I'm going to have a smaller budget than what I would like. But no biggie. I can live with it. Yeah. And the cards that I sent to Greg to showcase on the Monday night live stream on Midlife Cards. Midlife Nation, the Midlife Card Show. Check that out, everybody. They're cards that I went through my PC and I was like, okay, what cards am I not as in love with today that I loved when I acquired them and I came up with seven. You'll see them on Midlife show on Monday. And they're cards that if they, if, if they don't sell from the Midlife Card show, which I don't necessarily expect them to, but it's fun to participate. Then they're coming to the national with me and they'll be trade bait or I'll consign them to, to somebody to sell for me. From there and, you know, pick up that money later to, I don't know, help pay off whatever debt I incur while I'm at the National. So it's fun. I think I love Greg's idea, by the way, for the Midlife card show. You know, one, I think episode seven of Sports Cards Live, going back to like May of 2020, was a. Basically a card show, except that I had. I had a whole maybe seven, eight, nine different people. Each person would come on for like three minutes, show cards, and I'd, I'd move them to the back room, I'd bring on someone else, show them for three or four minutes showing cards. And all these guys sold a bunch of cards that way. And this is before whatnot was even a thing. You know, I kind of, I did that way back. And Greg's definitely doing it differently and I love how he's doing. It's probably a big improvement for what I did years ago, but. But I love, I love the idea that he's doing it. I think, I think it's great. And I even heard, you know, I watched him talk about it this morning when I was watching Midlife Card Chase talking about what's going on. So I think he's got a great, A great approach with that. And, and one last thing that we also have to mention about that is your own sports cards, live rodeo Joe Perot is going to be on that show and the Mike Petty. So pretty epic. There's gonna be also Dave Messari, who you guys are gonna all fall in love with, and then Greg. So it's gonna be a really fun time on Monday. And who knows if we sell some? I mean, I'm, I'm putting some crazy cards up, Jeremy, like ones that are gonna hurt. Like, I'll be. I will be sad if some of these cards sell and I will be regretting it. I already know Ted Williams Rookie 38 Gowdy, Joe DiMaggio, 48 Leaf Centered Ted Williams card. So, like, cards, I really don't need to sell. Kind of don't want to sell, but if it happens, it happens. Yeah, well, you'll deal with it. You'll. And listen, you've set a price, and if anyone offers anything lower, you don't have to accept that. You can deal with it. You'll be right there live, so you can, you can figure it out. Also want to let everybody know that yesterday I recorded an episode with none other than Victor Roman, Senior of True RCS here on YouTube, author of the book True Art, True Rookie cards. And we had a great chat. It went longer than he wanted it to, but that's what happens when you get two passionate people going up and kind of on opposite sides of a topic, you know. But I think we, we, we let, we had a great discussion and as Victor, Victor's like Jay Lee. You're gonna, you're gonna hear about this in the comments. You know, some of my strong takes, I was like, bring it on, bring it on guys. Bring on. You know, come at me with, with your rebuttals to my comments. Not that, not that I think that I'm right. Just that I'm right for me. You know, that's like these are. We can all choose to collect how we collect, but looking forward to that. The Steve Taft interview here on on Sports Cards Lives has been very popular. A lot of people have watched that, so hope everybody has enjoyed that and we'll continue to, to watch more and more. More and more people will continue to watch that. Okay, what else? Oh, and Enter the Inferno, the live production that I'm teaming up with Inferno Red Technologies to host at the national on Saturday. 3 o' clock on the main stage is coming along. We've started the interviews with the final six contestants as we narrow it down to three or four. So that is coming along. And oh man, I'm not even looking at comments yet, but I see I've got 51 new ones since I last looked. So we'll go through some comments shortly. Guys, we've got. Okay, so here's what's in store in store for tonight. We have an action packed show tonight, guys, so it's gonna be me and David here for the next 15 minutes. Then we are expecting Darren Ravel of Collect CLLCT, the, the Bob Boozle Enterprise. We're expecting Darren Ravel to join us in about 15 minutes and with him we are going to talk about these. Remember the fractionalized company collectible which is defunct now or at least in opera not it's not operating. That company was sold to a gentleman named Philip Newman. Is my understanding he acquired the company, the assets and the company had shares in, in many of these assets, if not all of them itself. So he acquired all that and a lot of investors are left feeling they're holding the bag. They don't know what's going to happen. Well, he is now consigned these cards over to Heritage Auctions. They are up in the preview and, and those cards are slated to start selling I think as early as this weekend, as late as through early August. I think some will even be on display at the National. Darren Revelle is going to, come on, we're going to talk about, I got a lot of information to share about that. We're also going to talk about the sort of Frankencard Honus Wagner T206 that is up for auction on Love of the Game that is consigned by Keith Olbermann, formerly I believe, of espn, very experienced collector. We're going to talk about that. And I mean it's, and CGC has slabbed it as authentic, restored. Anyway, that's a really interesting case study as well. So we're going to talk about those things. There's. But you know what I mean, what's also interesting? This is kind of a, it's a big, this is big news, but there's not a lot to talk about it except to just acknowledge that Upper Deck has re signed Michael Jordan as a legacy partner, resigned him to their, you know, to, to their spokesman, spokesperson roster. And it's pretty, it's pretty big news actually. There's been a lot of, there's been a lot of like, you know, people, some people I, I've heard chatter hoping that, that, you know, fanatics would get Michael Jordan or fanatics would buy Upper Deck. And you know, and talking to people there, you know, Upper Deck's not going to be sold. Michael Jordan's not going to sign with fanatics. He is with, he is with, with Upper Deck now. So I actually asked Upper Deck, I asked Jason Mosher, a president of Upper Deck. I said, what does a legacy partner mean? I'm seeing everybody talking about it, but no one, no one's, I think I'm the only one that asked the question what is a legacy partner? Why is that interesting to us? Why couldn't they just tell us that they signed him to another term and he's still with them, but they said they, they've agreed to bring him on as a legacy partner. So I sent him out. I said, what's a legacy partner? And I'm going to share the response. Guys, here it is. This is the summary. Number one, a spokesperson who has been a large part of the Upper Deck legacy in Michael Jordan's case, he has been exclusive with Upper Deck the entire life of Upper Deck authenticated and almost the entire life of Upper Deck as a company. Number two, it's a legacy partner is a spokesperson who is involved in the curation and creation of product development which shapes their legacy and collectibles. And number three, a legacy partner is a spokesperson who actively partners with Upper Deck to combat counterfeiters, forgers and infringers. I got to tell you, those first two are lovely, but that third one I really like. I really like that third one. And that's just, I think, a sign that Michael Jordan cares a lot about his image, his likeness, his name and what he's doing out there. So congratulations to both Upper Deck, my friends at Upper Deck. Congratulations. Congratulations to my very good friend Michael Jordan on signing on as a legacy partner with. With Upper Deck. And yeah, I mean, any thought, David, I don't know if this interests you at all, but what do you. What do you. You know, I'm not very much of a modern collector, but even though, you know, I know that we both like Upper Deck as a company, is it a little sad to know that there aren't going to be new cards of Michael Jordan that are fanatics are producing? Like, is. Is there any part of that for you or. Not really. Not really. What I like about. I mean, I don't know. Ah, Michael Jordan cards are so expensive, you know, So I. I'm not saddened by it. I'm not saddened by it at all. I think that the Michael Jordan investors, collectors, people who have turned into investors just by virtue of having so much value in Michael Jordan cards accrued during ownership, if they're not thinking about this, they might, they might consider it that the fact that there are no real like licensed NBA Michael Jordan cards coming out ever really in his post career, only by Upper Deck in like, you know, Goodwin Champions and that kind of thing, I think that that helps. Helps maintain the value of the cards from. From his actual playing days and when he does have cards, because no one can buy new cards to quench the thirst, they have to go for older ones if they want. So I think it. I think that it really helps with the scarcity, the rarity of my. Well, the scarcity of Michael Jordan cards all together. So I think there's something val. Beneficial about that to people who already own Jordan cards. But. And let's face it, I mean a lot of people today are. Would rather buy cars of LeBron, Steph Curry, Victor Wembanyama, SGA, Anthony Edwards, these other guys now. So Jokic, Luca. I mean, there's other players to collect. So I don't know. I don't. I'm happy for Upper Deck. I think it's the. It's a big asset for them to have Michael Jordan and I'm a fan of Upper Deck. So. Yeah, I. Yeah. Any other thoughts on it? Would you say that Michael Jordan is the biggest get you can get in the entire hobby to be able to sign for an exclusive? Is there anybody that's above him? Nobody. There's no. There's absolutely nobody that's above him. And who would be number two? Would you say, Would you say it's Messi or would you say it's somebody else? What's your thought on that? Tiger Woods. Messi. Yeah. They have Tiger woods as well, I believe. Yeah. Messy. I mean, right now we're right in the thick of the, of the World cup here, you know. So you go back two years or forward two years, we might not be thinking about Messi, but we are right now because of where we are in the calendar. So I think there's a big drop after Jordan. Yeah, Brady, Brady's a big one as well. Of course, you're right, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, it's exciting. I also want to mention, you know, I saw the announcement by Jeff Wilson of Sports Card Investor that they are opening up a second location of Cards hq. So they have the one in Atlanta, they're opening up one in Detroit and I watched Jeff's video announcing it and I gotta say I was really happy to hear him mention the Detroit Red Wings several times and the fact that they are in anticipating servicing the hockey community there in Detroit and even people coming over the border from Canada down there, I'm sure they'll get a lot of tourists as well. So wishing them the best with Cards HQ Detroit. Hopefully it builds on to the success I believe they're having in Atlanta. But that's kind of interesting news. We see Tom Brady with, with, with the Card Vault opening stores all over the place. We see what's going on at Burbank. Sports Car just seems to kill it day after day after day down in Los Angeles where you and I got to spend time together back in, in March. So it's, it's neat to see more and more bigger stores opening. And by bigger I, I guess I mean Cards HQ will be big. I don't think the vaults are huge stores footprint wise, but they're certainly huge branding wise. So anyway, that was just a bit of news that came across and Connor Bedard, who's the one of the like darlings of the hockey hobby, speaking about Burdeck, he's injured. He got, he just announced he's out for four months. And will that provide an opportunity to buy his cards for less than they have been going? It's going to be interesting to watch the Connor Bedard market, which I haven't been paying much attention to since the end of the regular season. But it'll be interesting to watch that for the next next few months into the beginning of the. Of the regular season. Oh, and, and one more thing, David, before we go to some comments. I loaded up a whole bunch more cards, guys on my per. On my PC account on Instagram. Jaylee underscore cards. I kind of bombed a bunch of posts onto there over the past week. So let me know what you think, guys, if you are enjoying what I'm posting there. It's. It's been a lot of fun just to share some collection cards. So that's been up to almost 100 posts over there. So we got some topics to get through. But, uh, and we're gonna bring on. We, we will bring on Darren Revelle as soon as he gets here. We're expecting him in about five minutes. But let's say hello to Mr. Outlaws is with us. We got Stukes with us. Brian 907. There's Jesse. Bill Betts. Hello to you. The Professor. Good evening. There's tony Southern collector Laura. Good evening to you. Dinged corners. What's up? Jeffrey Clapper is with us. Orlando is with us. So is Yankees fan Rob Star. There's my guy. Jesse is here. Double V live from Calgary. It's Saturday night. What's up? Mookie Chilson called. Shot cards. Orlando's here for David Chase. Orlando. I won't take that. I won't take that personally. I might not give you a hug at the national, but I won't take that personally either. He says, what T shirt? I am wearing the American caramel T shirt tonight. What is up? I'm wearing a mullet T shirt tonight. There we go. Five Cent wax. Good evening to you, Mookie. Chelsea. So nice of David Chase to give away 200 tonight. What's up? Ken Wood, Pre War Dreams. 5 cent wax. Double O's card guy again. Okay, we're getting, we're getting into doubles here. Piccolina. I gotta tell you, we've been shouting out Piccolina the cat here for quite some time. You know. Well, Piccolina the cat, I noticed, mentioned sports cards live in a recent episode. So I went to check out the video. It's actually, it's. It's literally a cat. It's a, It's a cat YouTube channel. And I left a comment. I said Piccolina is a very nice, nice cat. Very. So Piccolina and Your owner, whatever your name is, welcome. Good to see you. What's up? Foul ball. Jeff Hard at Patriots sports cards. Jim Define is here. Jacob Doll. Junk Wax Johnny. First time, long time. Welcome back. Junk Wax Johnny. Welcome. Newfie Sig is here. Skeppy says David has a nice fuchsia color going tonight. Good to see you, sir. LG J in the house. What's going on? What is these junk waxes. Two part hangovers are rough in reality. Cool. On a podcast. Hey, we'll take it. Zach Swisher is here. He's going hunting on Golden Auctions right now. I believe. I believe Golden Elite is ending tonight itself. So that's exciting. Larry Gitlin, what's happening with you? Welcome, welcome. Stoops is looking and buying, but he's not a goat hunter, so the national budget is good. Bobby Burrell, is the national becoming more of a social than a buying spree? It's both, Bobby. It's both for me. I love buying at the national and I love the social aspects of it as well. Okay, we're gonna pause there, guys. We're gonna pause there and we're gonna bring Darren. Give me a thumbs up. Darren. If you're ready to join us, David, I'm gonna say goodbye to you for a bit. We're gonna go. I'm gonna go one on one with. With Darren Ravel and I'll bring you back on a little. Oh, yeah. And he's. And he leaves. He leaves without me being able to kick him off, which I wouldn't have done anyway. All right, I am going to get myself prepared for Darren here. And let's go, Darren. Here we go. Darren Ravel, welcome. Now, I can't hear you. Yeah. Oh, now you can hear me. I lost you. Okay, I got you. You can hear me. Welcome to Sports Cards Live. Your first time here? How are you? When we transitioned, I lost you. Jeremy, do you have me now? Darren, do you have me now? I'm coming back in. Okay, come back in. Come back in. We'll let Darren leave and come back in. Heloc. Lol. Zach's bidding on a card in Golden. No bank to foreclose. Jl that's right. Mookie chosen Jorge Alvarez will float you money if you need a chair. Me. Oh, good one. Good one, Mookie. Jim defined. If you find the cards you want, then does it really matter where you get them from? Yeah, pretty much exactly. There's something special, though, about buying a card at a card show. For me, I do enjoy creating those Memories. Adding to the story of the card stukes is still going for the card Social gathering is for after absolutely high pop. Professor Brian agrees. Dane Corners bought zero cards the past two nationals and it was fine. High. Bob says if I found one of the big three cards I'm seeking, I would 100 buy it and just go to the national with very little budget, why not, right? I mean, you can still go and enjoy it. Absolutely. All right. Darren, can you hear me now? Yep. Welcome to Sports Cards Live. Darren Revelle, your first time. How are you? I'm doing very well, thanks for having me. Oh, you are welcome, man. You are welcome. Listen, I've been following you on Twitter or X for quite some time and recently there's. So listen, before we get into this, this, this topic, which is the, the fractional company collectible, their assets are being offered on Heritage right now and a lot of people are up in arms. And why, why I care about this, guys, is because for about a year and a half I created content for collectible and I, I directed a lot of people over that platform by doing live streams on their behalf. I was paid to do content for them. And when, when they went bankrupt or they were sold and people were left pulling the bag, I felt bad. I mean, if I sent anyone over there, I, I feel bad. So I want to bring attention to this as best as I can and hope that, that the right thing is done here. And Darren, I think you care because you are a journalist, you are a hobbyist. And, and what? Why do you care about this? Darren, I'll let you say it. So I will say that I, I did not participate in collectible. I did do a bunch of transactions with Rally. I sold things to Rally. And as principal, every time I sold things, I never sold, if I sold the whole thing, I at least bought back 10% of it. So in other words, it wasn't like I didn't want to say, oh, I sold this, I sold this off. And I wanted to have faith in the fractional, in the fractional business. You know, the collectible thing for me is just as a journalist, you know, there's not that many people in this hobby or there are not many hobby journalists that hold people responsible for what they do. And you know, maybe my whole. I'd like to think that my career has been defined by not being scared to do things. And so this situation with Philip Newman, I think, listen, if you, look, if you go back to collectible and the way that they were structured, there were several things that in the way that they were structured, that made it easier for him to do what he has done. And essentially that is to become the trustee, to buy these assets out without buying out the entire percentage of them. So the way this is working now is he owns the small piece that collectible owned and obviously there's a whole bunch of other people that own more, sometimes the majority, but he does have the technical right to bring them to sale. Now, where I've been really careful is on X or Twitter. I have said he has the technical right. But is Heritage being ethical? Are they doing their duty to collectors by allowing these things to be sold? I've reported that Phil Newman got a five million dollar advance. In fact, he at one point got a ten million dollars advance from golden before golden realized I can't do this. But Heritage gave him the advance. Heritage, the way they look at it, apparently haven't talked to them because I reached out, but they haven't talked to me. The way that they think of it is he has the right to sell it. And I don't think it's that simple. I think that, you know, if you have a heart for the collectors who pay money for all your stuff, $2 billion a year you're bringing in from collectors, I think at some point you have to do what's right. And the fact that there is not an arrangement now and things sold yesterday and are selling tonight, there's not an arrangement to get those collectors their money back. And when people go to the collectible app, they don't even know what percentage they have. It doesn't seem like there's any mechanism. I, I just don't know how you again, given in the scheme of things, the $2 billion, that collectible, you know, sold last year. This is a Heritage pimple. This is a pimple. Why, why would you possibly be this dumb to. Hey, maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe, maybe people won't. Maybe they'll only lose the people who, if he doesn't pay back the money, you know, they'll lose those people. But I just think it's a bad move and I think I'm just using my voice. Nothing against Heritage, but I'm just trying to use my voice to say I don't think this is fair. You. Thanks for those comments, Darren. And you jumped, you jumped right in. So I'm just going to kind of round out some context for people who may not know some of the background and then I'm going to share with you of some communications that I've had. I'D like to get your thoughts on them as well. But Collectible was sold to Philip Newman. He acquired the company, and in acquiring the company, he acquired the shares of the fractionalized assets that the company owned upon IPOs. So he. He owned the company and the shares of those assets. He then basically shut down the website, the app, and people could not. Could not access it. And then, and then, and then the crazy thing is he had a store in New York City with. With all these things in the window. Oh, really? Yes. And. And Justin Cornett, one of the. One of the guys who had his. His. He saw it in the window. And, you know, I mean, that was crazy. And it said, you know, it was for sale. He was selling these things. So that. Yeah, that. That was the next step. And then. And then I think. I think Cornette settled with him because he's. He was the only guy who sued. And. And then no one heard anything until they heard that Newman was shopping this around to golden and Heritage. Yeah, I had heard that he was shopping these around privately under NDA. I also heard Justin Cornett, who's a great collector, sued him, settled, and signed an NDA. And then, you know, there's a. I've talked to a lot of people about this in the last couple weeks, Darren and I don't know Phil Newman, but I just. A lot of people I've talked to have said that this is one sketchy individual. I'm just. I'm just repeating what I heard. And if. What is the point of an NDA with Cornet if there isn't sketchiness going on? I don't know. I reached out to Heritage and I let them know that we were going to be talking about this, and I asked Heritage several questions. I'm going to read you the questions that I asked. I'm going to share with you the response, but I basically, I asked them to. I said I'd appreciate thoughts on the following. Approximately how many items in the upcoming auctions previously appeared on collectibles Platform? I asked, what due diligence did Heritage perform to satisfy itself that the consigner has clear legal authority to sell these items, which apparently he does Heritage provide any information about how these consignments came to them? Did Heritage have any communication with parties connected to the collectible, bankruptcy or the platform before accepting these consignments? I asked, has Heritage received or investigated any ownership claims relating to these items? I asked, is Heritage comfortable that former consignors, fractional investors, or other interested parties have no legal claim that that would affect the sale. And finally, I asked, is there any additional information Heritage, like collectors to know about these consignments? And here's the. I'm going to share the, the, the, the meat of the response that I, that I got. I'll share it on my screen. This is. I, I, I. They sent it to me. I'm sure I. Was it from a PR person or was it from Chris Ivey or Steve Ivey? This is from Chris Ivey. Okay. This is, this is directly to me from Chris Ivy. Rob Rosen was on the, was on the email as well. So I'll share it. And you know, the little bit of preamble here. Thanks for reaching out. I'll see you at the National. But this is the interesting paragraph here. I will read it aloud. It says, regarding your questions below, we appreciate you letting us know you are covering the sale and discussing some of the offered materials. It is Heritage policy not to provide information about our consignors. As I'm sure you can understand, we have an obligation for all consignors to treat their information with the same high standards. To that end, I cannot provide you with any details about the consignors to the sale or, or give any details about the consignment process. With that said, I'm happy to confirm that Heritage has a know your client policy that is best in class in our industry. And then this next part is bolded. Because of our rigorous due diligence policies, we stand behind the title of every lot that we offer at auction for the sale. I can share that we conducted considerable additional efforts to ensure the integrity of our sale. And we found nothing to indicate that our consignors are not acting in full conformance with all applicable laws or governing documents and that apply to. That apply to them. We conduct due diligence not only on our consigners, but on the lots consigned as well. Our bidders work with us because they trust in our offerings and, and we provide every buyer with the confidence that our due diligence processes provide. There's, there's no, there's no one here suggesting that they don't have titles of the items and that Phil Newman doesn't have the right to sell them. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about should they be selling them? Well, we're. Yeah, we're talking about should they be selling them, but we're also talking about. Because, Darren, one of my understandings is that the investors have no way to recover their funds. If Phil Newman owns them, if he sells them, and he sells them on Heritage, which is probably a great platform to sell them on, they may re. They. He may realize some great proceeds, but there's no mechanism for him to distribute them to those investors. And now there has been. You reported, Darren, I think it was just yesterday. Yeah. You reported some new information. And before you speak to it, I'll put it on the screen, because right here, this is Darren's tweet yesterday. Why don't you talk about this? I won't read. Yeah, so this. This was. This was a letter that went to Heritage, basically saying that we're requesting that you hold the proceeds of whatever the collectible assets are that sell yesterday and today. You know, until it's more clear what's going to happen. And this is on behalf of. We have no idea what. What's the qualifying class here or who's participating in this. But at least it's. It says clients. So assume that there's a couple people, at least, who have something in collectible. Now, why would. Why would Heritage comply to this? I don't know. I'm a little bit surprised that there wasn't another lawsuit that stopped the sale, because now we're at the sale. I mean, your power is, if you can get a summary judgment or some sort of injunction that would stop the sale now that the sale happens. Honestly, I'm not sure whether Heritage. I mean, it's almost positive for Heritage not to have to pay Phil Newman. Right. I mean, like, they sold the items. The items are sold. Yeah. Like, if the court holds it up then, but there are no courts right now. Where is the lawsuit? Why did this take so long? Justin Cornett has sued, but no one else did. So I kind of wonder if it's too late at this point, because it's like a lawyer just writing a letter saying, please hold the proceeds. I think Paul Esco has something going on. He wasn't able to join tonight, regrettably. He. He did want me to send his regrets that he couldn't join, but he's doing. He's got something going on as far as trying to corral the. These proceeds. I don't know if that'll do any good. The other thing is that I just wonder, like, it is a little bit late if these items have been bid on one by people and if those people have gone to pay for them. But I also think that there was nothing maybe to. To go after until there was money moving with relation to these items. Any thoughts on that? Or potentially, you know, some people said to me that if they really care about the hobby, people shouldn't bid on these things. And I, you know, that's like a little bit far to have like a coordinated effort. If people really love Eddie plank and a PSA4 and they've been looking for it. I don't really want to say, say, hey, you know, you should, you shouldn't go get that. I, and I, I think it's unrealistic that the actual money flows, that there's an actual sale. It's hard for me to believe that that would have been a strategy. I think the better strategy would have been to, to try to get these things not to sell. Yeah. Let's talk for a minute about the other event that happened on the way to Heritage, which was these assets which were these collectibles were offered to Golden Auctions, to Ken golden and his, his auction company. And upon first taking them in and then learning that these were the collectible assets, Ken basically said, I don't want anything to do with these. I invited, I, I spoke to Ken mid last week and I said, hey, we're going to be talking about this. Do you want to come in and talk about why you wouldn't, why you didn't take these items onto your platform? And he basically, he basically said, you know, let me think about it, but I don't want to put myself in a position where I am speaking poorly of a, of a competitor. And you know, so I, you know, he, he, he made the decision and we know he made the decision. So I think that's enough of a comment as to, you know, this isn't like Joe Schmo's auction company got it and they made the decision. You know, Heritage can say that someone who is in the sports card industry, sports auction industry, on the same level as them chose differently. That's it. Well, that's what happened. That, that's exactly what happened. And they obviously pass it through their legal. Heritage being a huge global business with, I'm sure a great in house counsel found a, found a way to bring these things on. And I, but I just don't. Jeremy, I just don't understand. Given how it is such a small little thing, the fact that we're even discussing this tonight is so unnecessary. Like, like why, why do you need to be selling again? You add up the 1.55 million from the mantle, the 280,000 from the plank, you add up all these and no, it's not a significant amount of their, their revenue. In, in fact, if you get what their likely percentage is from all these items, it's probably, it's probably a. It might be. It'll be a couple million dollars. Is that, is that worth, like even this, Even us talking about it? Is there. But yeah, I hear you. And, and I, I. It's a good. I. There's a. I, I was told there's approximately 130 assets totaling about 20 million in value. That's that. Okay, so that. So, so, so, so $2 million is what they'll make off this. Is that worth it? Yeah, I, that's a, that's a good question. I, I don't, I don't know. But I'm also torn because on the part of me feels like for the investors who might be left holding their bags, their empty pockets, this might like converting these assets to cash might be their only chance at recovering the problem. Don't forget who you're dealing with. You're dealing with Phil Newman. And Newman is going to say, well, I had all these legal costs and this and that, and then I had these costs and then I had these costs. And ultimately, yeah, we'll figure out what you're going to get, but it's going to be about 5 cents on the dollar. Who is Phil Newman, Darren? Do you know who this. I don't know who he is. Not many people know. I tried to get to talk to him forever. At some point, he passed over. The person who was conducting was, was owning all these assets was former hotel concierge. At every step of this situation over the past two or three years, everything has been weird, strange, sketchy, you know, and had the appearance of fraud the entire time. Yeah, I was in, talking to a few people. I sort of asked why are people skeptical of, of, of Phil Newman? And well, there's two reasons. I got. One, there's been no communication from him to anybody who's tried to get a hold of him. And there's, and there's no mechanism for. Of which for him to distribute the funds. And, you know, I did receive a message from somebody might have had sort of some inside information. And I'm going to, I'll read what I heard, but I'm obviously, I'm going to keep this source confidential per his request, his or her request. But he basically says, you know, I don't know anything more than anyone else. Just that that Phil guy has been ignoring calls from collectible shareholders and is selling the item. Seems to have zero plan to pay anyone out. Some he he legally has cut some. He has legal. Sorry, it's a bit of a grammar issue. I'll just read it as it says some. He legally has custody of the assets. I guess Heritage is saying it isn't their problem what he does with the proceeds. But still so scummy. I believe golden was offered all these items but said no once he was made aware they were from Collectible. So that, you know, I, I did speak to a few other sort of investors and in the, in the app and the one person sent me the last communication they received from collectible and that came November 14, 2024. Yeah, which was on the closing. But this guy basically said, you know, here's the last communication I received from them. I've inquired about my shares to their customer support email several times since and never received a response in over one and a half years. Would love to hear from anyone at collectible. I think it's only Phil Newman though, at this point, especially if the assets they've held for over one and a half years are now being sold. Will they distribute the sold value to the rightful owners based on the number of outstanding shares? I'd love to find out more. Please keep me posted. It doesn't, by the way, it does. It doesn't seem that what he did should be possible. Right. It should not be possible for someone to be the trustee of the assets. Fine. You bought collectible, you get the percentage that collectible had in the item. But how could you sell something that you don't own? The majority of that, just in principle doesn't seem right. Now, by the way, I've, I've reported all the time about a museum that goes bankrupt and a museum that goes bankrupt and you have it on loan, you can lose it then, you know, you could once, once something, once that happens, the loan agreement doesn't mean anything. I just think that the way this is set up and the stringency that collectible, that rally that all these fractional groups went through and, and what the SEC required of them. It just seems strange that there weren't protections even in the sale. Yeah, this is the thing. You were, you felt secure because this was regulated and, and the regulations did not help you and there were fees involved that you had to pay because of that regulation and that did not help you. Or at least the price per share went up because of that and it did not help you. And any Joe Blow apparently could have bought the company because Phil Newman has companies upon companies upon shells. You know, I, I guess it just came down to he was able to pay the price that collectible was willing to, to accept. Well, I've heard in my discussions that there were other offerers and my question is, why did they sell to this person if he's so shady? What. And, and sketchy. Why, why would they sell to somebody like that? Must, it must have been whether it was cash or whatever it is. It had to be the best deal. It had to be. And when you're going down, you don't really have concern for, you know, other, other people. I, I just wish this could have been done better. It would it have been possible to say, okay, Phil, you're buying collectible. You get the percentage of the assets. Let us pay you out. Right. So you, you bought, you buy all that. We got to get these whole, we're responsible for the whole piece. So if you want to buy collectible, we'll let you buy the pieces and you can let that value soar. Right. But, but you can't buy everything because you don't own anything. Own everything. And you can't control everything because you don't own everything. Yeah, I put out a call on social media to just an open call to let me know if you had any information to investors, consigners. And I probably a dozen people and it was a common theme. Haven't heard from them at all. But the other thing I realized is that there were a lot of people that did invest in these fractionalized assets. And question for you, Darren. I've. Do you think was collectible and rally and whoever else, were they ahead of their time? Is there an opportunity for fractional investing to become a part of the collectibles hobby? Or do you think that the experience that we're dealing with right now kind of ruined it forever? So you obviously need the, the SEC involved, which causes a lot of stress partly because the items are relatively volatile and by the time you work through the sec, it's very difficult to nail, especially how things have gone up and down the perfect price. The other main issue is it's just not liquid enough. It doesn't trade like the stock market. So the fact that you can put in a bid and ask and it doesn't get immediately filled. Right. This isn't StockX. This isn't. It doesn't get immediately filled. That was the problem that it wasn't liquid enough to act like a stock, stock exchange. So if you wanted to sell 50 shares into something, it would come back and say you sold four shares and that, that, that's not going to work. So I think that was the main problem. I think the question is going to become, is there fractionalization but not fractionalization for the masses? So is the next thing, hey, we're going to buy T Rex the dinosaur on the 14th and six rich guys are going to take a piece of it. I think taking a piece of things and hedge funds and VCs being involved are definitely going to happen. But the idea that a million dollar asset, you know, you could buy $25 worth, I, I think that's dead, at least because of the hurdles of regulation and the lack of liquidity. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's going to be popular if it ever surfaces again unless it's fundamentally different. And again, like you, you, I think you made a good point. When the SEC is involved, that just drives up the costs. And I believe one of the problems collectible was having back when they were operating was the cue to get through the values and items were changing too fast. They could, they could bring the items in, decide what to pay the consigner and, or value it at. And by time it's being offered, the value could change either way, up or down. If, if there's anyone who can get this done, it's going to be the guys who were the consigners who kept 30 to 50% of these items. And there were a bunch of them, those people who originally had the money to buy these items have the money to take it more to the courts versus just the masses and probably have a better case. And so, and if, and if they are well healed, maybe they're more well known business people who can hold Heritage's feet to the fire. I don't, the, the idea of giving this man in advance seems insane. But, but you know, they, they, they have the right to do it. They're a, a private business. It'd be interesting if Heritage was public, how they would put in their, their risks, you know, that they had to, what, what the risk of doing this was. But you know, Chris, whether, I don't know if you asked the right question or whether Chris didn't answer it, but no one thinks that Heritage doesn't have title here. Everyone thinks they do. Again, it's not a practical question, it's an ethical question. Right. And I would like, I would like to know what their conversations were with Phil Newman with regards to how the website is down. How much does he know about the percentage that everyone owns? Is that just not available now? Can he see a back end of it that's not on the website. Did he present anything to Heritage to make them believe that they were going. He was going to pay back collectors. Was that important to Heritage? Because Chris here says it's important that the item has Title. Well, okay, again, through some weird mechanism, Phil Newman, despite not owning these things, can be the trustee and he can sell them. Yeah, not disputed. Not disputed. He has legal title, legal right to sell them. I think that's what it comes down to for me, too. I also agree from what I've learned in my research that, yeah, there's nothing illegal about Phil Newman consigning these items to Heritage. It becomes an ethical question about. And really a reputational question, I suppose. How are people going to view Heritage for accepting these items? And it's. It throws another light or just another angle when you know that. That golden rejected these. That adds a bit of a. A filter to this whole thing. That isn't a great look, but they're comfortable now. That let. I received that email from Heritage, like, hours before you reported on the letter that was written and the letter. Do we know who wrote that letter that you tweeted about yesterday? No, I assume it's someone who. What I just said, someone who has a large consignment and owned at least 30 to 50% of at least one item. Is. Who do we. Is there anyone to blame for this whole situation? Like, is it just. I don't know. You know, I wouldn't blame Ezra at Collectible. I, you know, I would like to. You know, he's a friend of mine, and I think he's a good business person. I don't know how it went down the way it went down. Again, when you're just trying to save whatever you can and just try to sell a company, things happen. I would assume that in the bylaws, Collectible had the rights to be the trustee. And so when he bought, which makes sense, right? We don't own it, but we can sell it. And so he just bought what the rights were. And it, and it didn't take into account that there was going to be a new owner who would go awall. So I don't know about that. I. Is it fair that we're blaming Heritage? I just think it's the. I don't, I don't think that the fact that these are selling means that it's going to be closer for someone to cash out. I just don't. And, and, and the fact that they're selling to me is the finality of, of, of this Saga thing that should never happen have happened. Yeah, yeah, I listen, I, I, I'm, I share the same thoughts. I'm seeing some comment. I haven't been looking at comments, guys, but I'm seeing some comments. Comment. I'm seeing Ezra Levine's name, who was the CEO at Collectible. He's still in the industry and I do know, because I have communicated with him that he cares deeply about the situation and is, and is trying to get it, is trying to do whatever he can to rectify the situation. So you said deeply. You sort of affirmed what I said. Yeah, yeah, I, I listen, I think, I think Ezra definitely cares about the company that he started. The idea that he started that, you know, people, some get, get their money back. I, I think he, I think he believes that people are going to get their money back here in some sense. I'm, I'm just a lot more skeptical. Yeah, I'm with you though, dude. I think if they, if they don't get their money back after this, it's over. This, this, this Phil Newman, from what I'm told, seems like a, a guy who can disappear if he wants to or just not be found. So yeah, and people should come to me and you and let's continue to talk about it because, you know, we only have each other, you know, in this hobby and there's, there's a lot of pressure to only talk about what you're getting paid for and all this. It's never, never been harder. And so I think the only thing that, that we can do is just continue to be the people that want to talk about this because you never know when you're next. It'll be interesting to see what happens here over the next couple. So, Darren, do you know when the final items like. I don't know. No, I haven't gone. I don't have the whole Excel document. I obviously know last night I was watching the Mantle and the Plank. I mean, I can go, I can, I, we should go through at the end. I'll, I'll probably put together a list of everything in the prices that. Oh yeah. So we'll have an accounting of what everything sold for and how much these investments ended up being worth. Hopefully the money does get dispersed. Hopefully the legal letter that was sent to Heritage will cause Heritage to have to think about whether or not they disperse the proceeds to the consigner. I think they don't do anything until, until they're actually. There's some legal action in the court. I don't think you know, they're. They're going to be threatened by a legal letter at this point. Do you think they'll hold the. The funds then? Do you think they would hold the funds from Newman until. Not. Not. I don't think they would comply with just a legal letter without anything that happens in the court. So, yeah, I think that someone better get really serious and on Monday, file something real quick. Thanks for tuning in and being a part of the sports cards live community. Don't forget to, like, subscribe and most of all, keep collecting more great content to come. Sports cars is a lifestyle.