S8 E10: Collector's Corner with Bob Brittain!

Sa. Foreign. Welcome to TTMcast, your sports collectibles podcast. TTMcast is brought to you by Wanna Shuffle, the free monthly autograph trading service and by Resolution photomatching, the industry leader in game used authentication. Also supported by sportscollectorsdaily.com if it happens in the hobby, you'll find it on sportscollectorsdaily.com and sponsored by gemrate.com the latest grading statistics from the four major grading companies are just a click away. Visit gemrate.com it's free. And now here's our host, Drew Pelto. Well, hello everybody. We're coming to you once again here with TTM Cast, your sports collectibles podcast. This place we talk TTM cards, autographs, collecting and a whole lot more. Most of those things but really whatever comes to mind. This is season eight, episode number ten coming to you here on May 22nd that we're recording this. We'll have it out online around May 24, I believe here on a Sunday here on this nationally ranked sports collectibles podcast. I am Drew Pelton hosting us from the Dallas Fort Worth area of Texas, joined by our co host Aaron Littleton. Aaron, how are things going? Good to have you here. Well, it sounds like the rain is, is going here behind me but, but yeah, other than that, doing good, looking forward to to some graph in here pretty soon. And yeah, then doing the show. It's going to be great. Let's go. Well, a lot going on in news right now in the sports world of course we're down to the conference finals in the NBA and the NHL. We've got the spurs and the Thunder in the west, the Knicks and the terrible Cleveland Cavaliers in the east who are already down 02 after blowing a 22 point lead in game number one and losing by another 11 after that in overtime. But no, I'm not mad at all. Carolina, Montreal, Montreal up one game to none, which is a major shocker. And Vegas taking advantage of the fact that Colorado's top defenseman doesn't have a pair sitting on the sidelines with some injury right now. It's undisclosed even though he's able to play game five fine after whatever happened there. So yeah, Jared Bednar proving that he is completely useless when it comes to handling his defense because they cannot figure out exactly what to do with Maar being out. So yeah, again, not, not, not mad there but yeah, any, any thoughts on either, any of those four series at all there, Aaron? I mean it, it seems like you've got enough thoughts for the both of us, if I'm being honest. Yeah, but I, I did get. I haven't been. I haven't been around a lot. I'm trying to finish up my, my semester. Today was our last, uh, our last classes of the semester and then we'll get going with summer at the gym. But, but I did get a chance to watch the game the other night between the, the spurs and the, and the Thunder. That seems like the one that I believe went into overtime. So. So yeah, it, that seems like it's going to be a pretty good series. And yeah, Wimbanyama seems like he's gonna be a difference maker, so that should be an interesting one to watch. Meanwhile, in the pwhl, Montreal ends up winning it all in there. So a championship for Canada there. But with them winning it all in the Women's Hockey League and with the Montreal Canadiens still being alive in the NHL, how weird would it be to see, you know, Team USA wins double gold at the Olympics. How crazy would it be to see Canada possibly snap their Stanley cup streak by winning everything in both the men's and women's pro hockey leagues? Are kind of interesting, interesting possibility there for that that were to happen. Yeah, for sure. I think that, you know, kind of bizarro world. I mean, obviously hockey being. Being such a huge, a huge sport in Canada, you know, then, you know, it feels kind of weird that, that no Canadian team has wanted in the, you know, in recent memory. But that, that could be an interesting possibility for sure. Yeah. A little news from the national here and Aaron, you found this one and let me know just in time to get it on the show here. For anyone who has the VIP pass to the National, Gary Biebin, former Heisman Trophy winner, was originally slated to be one of the signers there and a guy that I still need for my Heisman index card collector. So I was excited to see him, but he has been removed from the list. I guess he is unable to make it to the show or something. But yeah, it kind of sucks to miss out on him. No word yet though on who his replacement's going to be. So just something for everyone to keep an eye on out there. And lastly, a little bit of show news here. We're still in need of some sponsors for the next six months, a year, however long you want to get on for. If you've got a collectibles related business or know a collectibles related business, they would like to get on board with us, please have them contact us. Ruthie Baker handles all of the business side of things for all of that, but need a new sponsor for Hobby Happenings is one of the big ones and we're actually going to be looking for a new one for stamp approval coming up here soon. Big thanks of course to wanna shuffle and to resolution photo matching for sponsoring us the last six months on each of those. But those are gonna be open here very soon if somebody wants to get on board with any of those. But yeah, we'll get to that email address here in a bit. Right now though, we'll take a look at what each of us had going on the last couple of weeks. I personally have picked up the 2026 Bowman baseball set, both the regular set and the prospect set. I try to buy those every year and this year I got them right as they came out just about. So I should have those coming to me at some point this coming week. I also picked up the hardcover copy of the Panini World cup sticker album and a box of stickers. Those should be coming in this week as well. And some of you may know that Coca Cola has 12 stickers that are under the labels of their bottles, both of Regular Coke and of Coke Zero. My wife was on a hot streak on that for a while. 10 in a row bottles of Coke Zero. Picking a different sticker on each one. You can't even see them. Like, you can't like tilt the thing and see the sticker to cheat your way in or anything. Ten in a row before finally getting a duplicate there. So just trying to fill in those final two on that, but got three here as trade bait as well. So yeah, pretty happy to have started on that and I hope we'll have more of those. Like I said, the sticker album and the box of stickers all coming in for me this coming week. So that's what I've got from the past weeks. That's what I've got ahead of me. Aaron, what do you got going on for you? Gin on a heater. I tell you what, like that's. Yeah, that's uh, that's awesome. You know, uh, I don't think that I could have done that. I would have got. I would have maybe got the first one and then it would have been all dupes after that. That's, that's kind of my luck there. But so I do have, I do have some exciting news for nobody but me. And that's that my, my check out my cards order finally shipped. I believe I, I placed it on something like February 6th. Well, here we are uh, it shipped on May 20th, so I, I'm. I'm looking very much forward to seeing all the Michael Youngs in there. It's probably been about two or three years that I've been, uh, accruing them in, in my, uh, in my box or my account or however they do it at. Check out my cards. And so I've got. I've got a bunch of. A bunch of cards for my various player collections in there, plus some. Some extra oddball miscellaneous stuff as well. So it'll be fun to open that. I'll probably be. Open that, opening that. A bunch of stuff about it on Instagram. For, for me personally, I. Not. Not sports related, but I am down. Hopefully Monday I will be. I will be down officially £40. Right now. It is. It is unofficial. So as long as I don't go too crazy at the game this weekend and don't have like 12 hot dogs, I should, I should, I should make it. Make it to £40, which is a, which is a very good milestone for me. You know, I'm excited to do that. I feel better. Uh, so, yeah, if you think about losing some weight, definitely, uh, definitely do that. And finally, yeah, we're gonna do a thing, Drew. Finally, finally we get to graph. We were planning on doing northwest Arkansas and then the rain kind of washed out our opportunity for that. And so, so, yeah, Sunday we're gonna, we're gonna do San Antonio Comes to Town, the Missions Padres Double A. I come to Frisco to play, uh, the Frisco Rough Rogers. And, uh, hopefully we'll be able to get some ink and, uh, get this show back on the road. You and I have now combined to lose the weight of my guitar amp. Wow. There we go. So, yeah, we'll actually be able to move around during the summer trip here and not like die after half a lap of the stadium or anything like that. So that's definitely a good thing to do here ahead of all of that. Well, coming up on this week's show, we're going to be talking in collector's corner to collector Bob Brittain. I actually have not yet talked to him. Usually I try to get the interview done in the week before, but stuff happens this week and I'm just now about to get on this. So we'll be talking to him on Sunday, so after we record this. So I can't really tell you exactly what to expect in that interview, so we're all gonna be surprised when we get to that. But we've got all of our regular segments coming up, we've got Baker's Dozen covering all the news in the hobby, including some upcoming card set releases you'll be able to find in your local card shops and online. Got hobby happenings covering some upcoming shows around the country as well. As I said, we're going to talk to Bob Brittain in Collector's Corner then go into making the grade covering a whole bunch of stuff in the world of grading. I'll talk about our stamp approval sponsored by resolution photo matching, giving our thumbs up to anything from the previous week, sometimes sports and collectibles related. A lot of times it's not. We also have the Vern Wrap minute covering deaths in the world of sports, celebrity, music, movies and politics. And the main reason why we are here, our TTM returns to finish things out. If you'd like to get a hold of us, Aaron, where can people email us here on the show? That would be ttmcastahoo.com any questions, any comments, feel free to send them to us on there. Also, you can follow us on most social media. We are at ttmcast on Facebook. You can find us on Blue sky. You can find us on Instagram tmcast. If you'd like to get a hold of either of us directly, you can find me online@dfwgrapher.com that is my website. My email is dfw graphermail.com and you can follow me on most social media at DFW Grapher. Aaron, where can the people find you at? Well, before I give out my socials, the first, the first thing that I want to say is that don't forget to send us all of your obscure players so that Drew can tell us which teams they played for on our national trip. Make sure and make sure you get that in. That's going to be a super fun game that we're going to play. We're going to do try to do our own version of Stump the Swab for those of you who are around in the in the mid 2000s on ESPN. So yeah, you can check me out on Instagram. That is Aaron Sports Card Explosion. That is Aaron A R R O N2R is 1A and you can check out my Michael Young collection. I have I am done for now until until that order that I mentioned earlier gets here. I'm done for now putting my Michael Young car way. It is all sorted for about, I don't know, three more days until I, until I'm hit with a hurricane of of Michael Young cards that I need to put in. And so I'll be posting all that good stuff on there. And if you want to follow my shenanigans coming up on the national trip here at the end of July, then you can check out the Eternal Graphing Tour that is the hub for my quest to visit every affiliated ballpark in both the United States and Canada. That is the Eternal Graphing Tour with underscores after each one of those words. There you go. So if you have not given us a follow yet, make sure you go ahead and do so on all those social media platforms. Let's get on to the meat of the show here. We've got Baker's Dozen Baker's dozen sponsored by sportscollectors daily.com Smart collectors turn to Sports Collectors Daily to stay up to date. From new releases to incredible collections hitting the auction block, news from inside the business of sports collectibles and much more, Sports Collectors Daily has it all. With no subscription cost, SC Daily also delivers a live look at the most watched sports card auctions on ebay for every sport. Sign up to get the headlines in your email for free or just visit the website whenever you like. With 16,000 stories in the archive going back 16 years, there is always plenty to read at sportscollectorsdaily.com. Baker's Dozen is a summary of a whole lot of great stuff going on around the collectibles world here. Don't forget to check out my approximately bi weekly article on sports collectors daily. SportsCollectorsDaily.com has all of the sports collectibles news you could ever want to see and pretty much anytime we put an episode out, I put an article up on their site as well. So give that a read, give all the other great stuff there or read Sports Collectors Daily. Also want to remind you of the TTM Cast Store and the somewhat new now ttmcast.com we revamped the website back around November or so, so if you haven't checked it out, make sure you go and do so. TTMcast.com click on the banner at the top right side of the page. You can go to the TTM Cast store, get yourself a T shirt, a hoodie, all sorts of great stuff on there. We got hats, we got like a pouch to keep your Sharpies in. All that kind of great stuff. Go check it out@ttmcast.com also I remind you this is the final call to get in stuff for our Sig Spot order that we're putting in on Monday, May 25. I've got a couple of People that put their orders in so far. We'd have our giveaway coming up here as well. We'll draw a winner for on that. Got a couple days left to get that. If you're hearing this on Sunday the 24th, even if you're hearing it on Monday the 25th, get it in quick. We'll try to get it in and get those out to you there. But yeah, come down to last call here on those. Speaking of which, you know, we had. We announced a giveaway on some SIG spot cards. I think I said either like four or five packs of them. And so we're gonna pick our winner. So Aaron, pick a number between one and five. That's how many times I'm going to reorder this. This list. How about four? Four? Okay. We're gonna hit the randomize four times on here. Here we go. One, two, three, and four. The winner is Bill Hayley. And so, Bill, you are our winner of. I think it was. I think I said five packs of six spot cards. I'll get your contact info from Ruthie and get a hold of you here this weekend. You'll probably hear from me before you hit it on the show here, but congrats to you. And there you go. We have our winner of some Sig spot cards. I want to remind you as well, you can get yourself a signed TTM cast card as well of a card of myself and Aaron did in the style of a 2003 Tops card or the dual rookie cards there, but has both of us on it. We've signed a bunch of them. And so if you want to get yourself a copy of it, send to Drew Pelto at P.O. box 140421, Irving, Texas 75014. And lastly, before we talk about some upcoming releases, want to remind you we're going to have a TTM cast meetup at the national this year. Gonna host that at Giordano's on Higgins Road, very close to the convention center the national is being held at. We're gonna start taking some RSVPs. I think maybe in about a couple weeks here. We'll try to get those started up in mid June so we can get everything tallied up from mid June to mid July. I talked to Wade Butte of my TTM gems. He has a great Instagram. He's been on our so on our show here once a couple months ago. And so he said, hey, I'm gonna be there and I'm going to have some T shirts to give away there as well. So he's got some shirts with his my TTM Gems logo on them. If you want to have a chance to win those, make sure you show up to the listener meetup and yeah, have a chance to win those and who knows what else. You might have some stuff to give away here from TTM cast or something else. But yeah, stop on in, let us know that you're going to be at the show. Like I said, we'll start taking the RSVPs on that in about a month or so from now. I know. Aaron, you said that your mom was trying to get some Chicago style pizza when, when she gets up there and from. I think she and Jen are gonna be flying in actually the morning of the TTM cast meetup so she can go to Giordano's there with us and finally get that, uh, Chicago style pizza fix that she's looking for. Yeah, absolutely. So if you wanna, if you wanna meet my mom and ask her why I turned out this way, you, you can, you can show up to the Giordano's and ask her for yourself. Yes. Just a reminder also as well, we will not be picking up the tab unfortunately on food and drinks there. So gonna be on your own there. But still come on down, have some fun. We'll be there. We'll have a few listeners there. I think we're gonna try to get a, see if we can get less and Clementi there as well. My wife's gonna be there as well. So you can sympathize with her and what she has to put up with as well. So there you go. Let's take a look at some upcoming releases. Now we've got all that out of the way. We've got a Donruss baseball leading things off here. May 27th is the date that we'll be seeing that in stores. This year's donrus product has 12 cards per pack and 16 packs per box. Three autographs or memorabilia cards in each of Those boxes with 36 inserts and parallels across that as well. Presale price only $200. And we also have 20, 25, 26 select Euroleague basketball that drops on May 29th. In that release, you'll get four cards per pack. You'll get eight packs per box, one autograph or memorabilia card and 15 inserts or parallels per box as well. And the pre sale price for that product is $50. I did a lot of the work on the photo selection in that set. So please, people, if you're basketball collectors, go out and buy that. Make my make my work worthwhile, please. I, I'm, I'm requesting you. I'll probably pick up a box of it or two. I mean 50 bucks isn't bad at all. Also got the WNBA Panini select product for 2025 coming out on May 29th as well. Four cards per pack with 10 packs per box there. Guaranteed 18 inserts or parallels in each of those boxes. Pre sale price on that runs you only $60. 20, 25, 26 upper deck AHL hockey. So some minor league hockey going on that drops on June 3rd third you will get six cards per pack. You'll get 16 packs per box. So nice, nice little stack of cards there and you will get two autographs and 32 inserts in and or parallels per box and the pre sale price for that product is $75. Lastly, another upper deck hockey offering coming for the 2025, 26 upper deck extended series Hockey also coming to us on June 3rd. You'll see 12 cards per pack and 12 packs per box. That's an even gross of cards right there. 144 cards in there. See 40 inserts or parallels in each of those boxes. Pre sale price is going to run you $250. Well, right here's where we'd usually talk about some upcoming signings, but I had a major, major time crunch going on this week to try to get all the stuff in. So sorry to say it people, but you're going to be on your own for this particular episode. We're back with some more here in the early June episode. We'll try to get a full list there from sportscollectors.net if you want to find out about some of those signings, go and check out sportscollectors.net if you're not a member, it's only 15 a year. That's less than a $50 a month. I mean that's, that's two postage stamps right there. That's one TTM a month basically that you're paying to get onto that site. So go and do that sports collectors.net find out all of their signings that they have upcoming that are advertised on there right now. Let's go ahead and move on into Hobby Happenings. You heard that right. It's time for Hobby Happenings. Hobby Happenings is just a chance to take a look some upcoming shows here going on around the country. I want to remind you want to shuffle with Belinda Wheeler. We're hoping to get around this month but she had a travel schedule that got kind of shifted around a bit. So we were hoping to get everything recorded. And as I was talking to her, she said, yeah, I'm on my way to fly out right now. I was like, okay. So want to mind you check her out on Instagram. Wanna underscore shuffle. Facebook page is Wanna Shuffle? And website there is wannashuffle.com you can find out what kind of extra giveaway she has going on for the May shuffle that is about to go on here in about another week. Address to send in your cards for a shuffle trade is P.O. box. Excuse me, it's a wanna shuffle, P.O. box 68 Cordova, SC 29039. So let's take a look at some upcoming shows we've got going on around the country. First off, starting in the Midwest, the Dallas Card show Illinois Edition taking place on May 29th through the 31st at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention center in Schaumburg, Illinois. Admission is going to be $10 per day of that one. Several signers for that one. Biggest names are Rocket Ishmael, Jace Young and White Sox up and coming prospect Colson Montgomery. If you want to find out more about that show and about the price on those autographs, go to DallasShow.com Chicago and then we have the Marvel show that's going on on May 31st at Solomon Pond Mall in Marlboro, Massachusetts. Admission There is free and as you know, Drew, you can't be free. They will have a hundred. They will have 180 tables there. They'll have Brad park and Ricky Davis signing there. So for more information about that, you can check out cardboard promotions.com heading on way further down the coast, we got the Tampa Sports Collectors Expo. It's coming up on June 5th through the 7th be played taking place at the Florida State Fairgrounds in tampa. Admission is $12. To get in there. They're going to have 14 signers out at that show. A couple of bigger names include Dennis Rodman and Benito Santiago. For more about that show, you can check out palmbeachautographs.com and floridastate fairgrounds.com right. You are significantly down the coast for Massachusetts. Yes, just a bit. Then we also have the Taylor Town Trade center show which is going on on June 6th in Taylor. That is in Michigan. So Taylortown Trade center in Michigan. Admission there is also free. They will have Theo flurry and Al McInna so some hockey grades going on there. Signing at that show. And for more information about that you can check out Switch Sports Card shows Detroit area on Facebook. Moving back up to Massachusetts here, this time a little bit further inland it's the dedham show on June 7th. Take place the holiday inn in dedham, Massachusetts. Admission only $3. Not quite free. Still not bad. Jeremy Roenick is going to be signing autographs there. I believe they said the prices on Those will be 49 and 59 depending on the item that you want signed. For more about the denim show, go and check out cardboardpromotions.com and where the the denim show goes, the Methuen show follows. So we also have the Methuen card show going on on June 7th as well at VFW hall number 8349 in Methuen, Massachusetts. Admission there $1 list. So that is two whole dollars you will pay to get into the Methuen show. They will have Derek Sanderson signing there. And for more information about that you can check out co cardshows.net fact is you can go to two card shows in one day and pay only 5 bucks admission combined for them. That's you really can't, can't do a whole lot better than that. And lastly, moving on down the coast, not quite as far as Florida this time, but still a little ways down, we've got the South Carolina show that's going to be on June 7th at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. Admission there is $10 and you'll have five signers there including Whit Merrifield and Brian Jordan. I think it's all baseball signers for that one, but still a couple nice names right there. To find out more about the South Carolina show, go to palmettocards.com don't forget a lot of these upcoming shows offer mail ins. If you can't get out to the show but have something you want signed, look and see if you can mail your items in. Go and visit cravetheauto.com for more info about upcoming shows and signings all over the country. Right now we're gonna move on into Collector's Corner and now it's time for Collector's Corner. Let's hear from our collector. This week on Collector's Corner, we're talking to Bob Brittain. Like I said, we're recording this before I've had a chance to talk to him. So not sure what we're gonna get into, but you're gonna hear a little bit about his collection and how he got started in the hobby and all about everything he does. I think he actually has a YouTube channel as well. So please enjoy this Interview with Bob Brittain in Collector's Corner. All right, well, we are here in Collector's Corner and we are joined, as we said in the intro there, by Bob Brittain. Bob, tell us a little bit about yourself. How old are you, where are you from and how long have you been collecting autographs here for? I'm 60 years old. I live in the, the metropolis of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. You have to look pretty hard on the map to find that. But I've been collecting basically since I'm a little boy, since I'm about 7 years old, going across the river to Milford, New Jersey and buying packs of Topps cards that my mom would, would buy for me. And I still have one of my favorite cards from that session of buying those cards, Sparky Lyle, that I was able to get autographed. And for me, collecting is all about, you know, the connections that it, that it has for you, taking you back to a place in time. And not necessarily always about the monetary value. But I've been, you know, collecting ever since. Kind of took a little bit of a pause, as some of us do in life when, you know, kids start happening and life kind of gets in the way. But around the time of the pandemic, my brother John and I got back into it full force when we found a box of exhibits cards that my grandfather had and that got us including a Lou Gehrig rookie. And that got us back into the hobby big, big time. And now my brother and I talk every day, which is something that my dad would be very proud of. My dad is no longer with us, but he did this hobby with us when we were teenagers. Frequent trips to Cooperstown, New York, collecting free autographs out back behind the Otisaga Hotel, having to stand online for about six hours to get to that point. But so building autographs that way, doing card shows with my dad and brother when we were kids in local little malls and things like that. So that's all of that is really the combination which brings us to where we're at in collecting right now and getting back into the TTM hobby, which I did last summer after taking about 40 years off. I did it in the 80s and took some time off. So all of it is just having fun and has been a blast for us. You mentioned there getting that Sparky Lyle sign. I always love doing that anytime I can remember, like what I got in some of those early packs that I got as a 6, 7 year old kid and finding them again, whether it's the actual ones somewhere stashed my boxes are going out and finding them again in a card thing like that. Do you remember what were your first ttms you ever got first off as a kid, and then also your first ones that you got when you returned here more recently? Well, the, the beauty of it is, is that I have all of those original ones in the 80s from the time I did it in the. In the 1980s. And I do have a YouTube channel, TTM then and now. And I share at the beginning of every episode, it's called then and now because I show something from the past. So that was kind of a way that I looked at how would I set myself apart from other guys doing YouTube and doing TTM, which I think a lot. You know, many, many great channels. But how would mine be a little different? Is. And one is that I had these cool things from the 80s because I don't throw anything away. So from that era, certainly I can't remember the first one, but the best one had to be Roger Maris. I have Roger Maris on three by five cards. Three of them. the time, my goal was to try to get the 1961 Yankees on autographs on three by five cards through the mail. And that had to be the best one in those days. I don't know if you remember Drew, but it was kind of taboo to send your cards out. No one was sending really good baseball cards out. That's why I think guys that have guys that have passed on that are on autograph baseball cards now there's a value because no one was doing it for a period of time. And then with the junk wax era and stuff, now it's okay to send our cards out. And now I love sending vintage out. But then it was just 3x5 cards. So those are my roots of, of the hobby, 3x5 cards. And then most recently, I think Gene Garber was my first return. He's a Pennsylvania guy here. As I got back into the hobby this past summer, he's a great ttmer living near the Pittsburgh area. And I sent out four cards that first day. Garber was. Was a return. Unfortunately, Jim Clancy was in that first group. He passed away. But recently, this past week, I got Jim Sundberg. The, the first day, June 17th last year, I sent out Jim Sundberg and it just came back. So as you know and as your. Your followers know, and I watch you and Aaron, I love what you guys do. You never give up on a TTM. I do remember in the 80s when I, you know, kind of went off to, you know, Grown up life and stopped doing ttm then that every once in a while mom or dad would call and say, hey, you got some mail. And it would be a TTM that was out for years. So you never give up on one of those TTMs that you have out there. Do you know off the top of your head, what's the longest you ever waited for one? Do you know any, any info on that at all? Then it was years. And I, I didn't document it now then like I do now. I do document, certainly for now. The one I sent out June 17 that I got back out last, last week is the longest for this reincarnation. But it was, you know, years. I'm sure I stopped sending probably about the time I was like 18 or 19 and I was out and married and living on my own when mom would call and say, hey, you got, you know, some mail. So it certainly, you know, was years. And in those days too, besides just sending to athletes, I would send to the teams and get some of the schedules and postcards and things of that nature. So sometimes they would take a little bit longer, you know, as well. Meanwhile, on the other side of that spectrum, do you ever find any that you've gotten back super fast? Especially like for any local guys? I know there's a few like down here in Texas. There was one that I mailed to just over in Dallas and somehow it got from me to him and back in three, three days, which that's a record I'm never gonna break at any point in my collecting. I can guarantee that. Have you ever seen any super fast? Yeah, I think the fastest is like six to seven days. I think seven. I know I've gotten a couple times. I don't know if I've ever gotten a six day return. But what blows my mind in the seven day, I know Joe Morgan, the manager who lives up in the Boston area. He returned in seven days. All right, Boston to Pennsylvania, eastern Pennsylvania, not that far away. But I've gotten some really quick returns out to Arizona and it just blows my mind how something can travel that fast out to Arizona and then back again so quickly. But you know, I think there might be a six day or that snuck in there, but those are the fastest ones I find. Typically nine to 10 days is maybe the bulk of, of what I see come back as far as quick. And I also, because I write everything down longhand, I'm not a guy on a spreadsheet. It's interesting that I'll get returns and they'll Come back to me all together. And I've sent them out on the same day all together. And very often that they all do that. My latest episode that just came out this morning, there was three guys that came back. They all went out on the same day. So I think some guys get their mail, they sign their mail, they send it back. Other guys, as we know, throw it in a box on the desk, and then they don't look at it again for who knows how long. And that's when we get those long haulers that we. We do get excited to get back. I was like, trying to race guys against each other, have similar names or something like that. Like, I'll send out both. Greg Harris is on the same dance. Like, go see who comes back first out of those guys. It's always fun. I have definitely done something similar with, with those things as well. Trying to, to see, you know, play one guy against the other. If anybody's listening, the Aspermonte brothers is a good guy to play that game with. They're both great TTM ers. Bob and Ken Aspromonte, you know, send to them on the same day. I've mentioned them. Hey, I just sent to your brother. Let's see who sends back first. But those guys are both great TTM ers. Tell us a little about this YouTube channel here. I know you mentioned a little bit about, like, what your videos entail and all that, but how did you get started in deciding to do that, especially, I mean, mentioning that you're not technologically inclined. It's like, wait a second, you're not, but you have a YouTube channel. Hang on a second. You got, you got to tell us about this, so. Well, I mentioned that to you, Drew. I didn't want to tell the whole world. I'm that technical. No, I am. I have no problem telling anybody. I'm an open book when it comes to that stuff. And no, I'm not very tech savvy. Obviously, I can use, you know, my smartphone. I could. I could look, I could look things up. I. I don't give myself enough credit sometimes, but my oldest daughter, Corinne, was kind of pushing me to do something on social media. My brother and I were kidding around with some stuff. My brother John, going back and forth, he. He was making some videos that he only sent to the family. And my daughter said, dad, you should do that. You should get something on YouTube. I have a little bit of a background in broadcasting. I've worked for East Stroudsburg University doing play by play on radio and television for over 35 years. I kind of did a Wally Pip. I replaced the guy that had to do something else on a given night. And I've been there for 36 years, ever since. So I have a little background in announcing. I'm very comfortable on a microphone. So my, my daughter knew that I had all this collection. And I'm standing right now, I know you can see it, that the listeners can. I'm standing in a room full of baseball cards. And so I had the fuel to send out ttm. So I was watching guys ripping packs and I thought that was interesting, but I didn't know that it would sustain me and keep me interested. So when I thought about doing the TTM again, it was something I had a passion about before in my life. And I had this old box of 3x5 cards that was the light bulb moment for me that said, hey, let's do it. That's why we call it Then and Now. So every episode we do about a minute and a half to two minutes of showing something from our collection. It's not always going to be a ttm. It might be an in person autograph. It might be just things from our collection. It might be something I bought recently at a flea market that I think is really cool that I want to share. That's the then the now is the returns. I do two episodes a week. They're Wednesday morning, they're Sunday morning. I Release them at 5am Why I picked that time, I don't know. Obviously I upload them and then they get launched at 5am I do have one viewer, listener, viewer that by 5:15 on those mornings he is commenting and if he doesn't, I wonder if everything is okay with him. So I think in part that's why I keep that 5am slot for that one guy that always chimes in. But I am having a blast. We just hit our hundredth episode a couple of weeks ago. We did 105 came out this week and it's at TTM Bob 64 on YouTube. So you can check it out. If you are, you know, listening to this, let me know that you found me from this. Because Drew, I've been watching or listening to you guys on my way to work since last summer, since I started the hobby back up. And I, I did a search and found you and I've been listening. So I love, you know, listening to you guys. I love that Belinda is a part of this show. I love doing wanna shuffle. So I would, I would love if anybody that, that Comes and watch my channel to, to let me know you found this here on. On the TTM cast. You're one of two TTM Bobs that I know. There's a Bob Demarchi who's also goes by the moniker there. It's like we, we don't need to have like a death match between you guys or anything. No, we don't. And we became friends. And let me tell you that story quickly. So I'm at the Philly show and at a table by another guy named Bob who has, you know, selling stuff at the Philly show. And we're talking and I'm telling him what. I'm telling Bob the, the vendor, what I'm doing. And, and, and Bob Demarkey looks up at me and he says, you're TTM Bob. You're the other one. I'm TTM Bob. So we met that day. We took a picture. We've become friends. I check in on from time to time. I hope to see him again at the show. I always comment, hey, what show are you going to? Am I going to see you here? Am I going to see you there? So the two TTM Bobs, we don't live far from each other. And that's why I'm TTM Bob 64. Because when I put in that name, it was already taken. So I took TTM Bob 64. I was born in 65, but the 64 is my high school football number, which I'm very proud of. So. But yeah, the two TM Bob's our friends. And it was funny how we just kind of randomly ran into each other. Yeah, I met him at the National Atlantic City four years ago there. So I don't know if he does the national every year for just, you know, close to you guys out there. But either way it was. Yeah, it was good to meet up with him and all that. Yeah. Very cool, dude. Yeah. So you mentioned that you had that a 61 Yankees project there as a kid. Is that something you continue with today or do you have any other specific projects that you work on now? So that particular one, I don't actively seek it out, although it has been very fun as part of the TTM Then and Now theme to reach out to guys I got then and then show them now. So Raleigh Sheldon and Al Downing are two guys that come to mind right away that I got, you know, through the mail in the 80s and then got again more recently. And we've done that to other guys, not just 61 Yankees. Andre Dawson was Another one that we were able to get in the 80s, I think my brother got that one, and then we got him again recently. But projects now, as far as TTM, I'm working on a 1988 Tops set. I know a lot of people when I say 88 tops, they make a face or they moan because of all the 88 sets. For a lot of people, it's not popular, I think in part because of the monetary connection. There's not a lot of great rookies in that set. I just have always loved the way it looks. To me, it looks like a magazine cover, the way the letters go across the top, the little corner banner on the bottom. And I just think it looks great. And also another podcast that I listen to is the 1988 TOPS podcast, where those guys take one card each episode and break down each card. So it's going to take them years and years and years and years to finish. But I started listening to them, and that was another reason why I got into making my own channel. So it was listening, you know, to those guys on the TTM88 podcast. So that is a project I'm working on for the most part. And then I love getting TTM cards that. From defunct teams. So this the San Francisco California Seals, the Washington Senators, the Colorado Rockies, Cleveland Barons. I'm part of a challenge right now where we're collecting. We were assigned a hockey team and we're trying to get those hockey returns. So I have the Dallas Stars and everybody that fed into them. So that includes the. The Seals, the Barons, the North Stars. So defunct teams is another little side, you know, hobby. I try to get those guys. Nice. You mentioned there when you sent out to guys, you know, back when you first started doing it and then resending them now, how much of a difference do you see in their signatures? Are there, you know, guys who have completely different ones? Are they mostly almost exactly the same kind of. How does it change over time? Well, Andre Dawson is impeccable. You know, like, his signature is amazing. And that looks very, very similar. Some of the other guys, as we all are getting, you know, adding years, like there is a little bit of a deterioration, especially for maybe guys that don't. That don't do it so much. A guy like Bobby Shantz, you know, he's 100 years old, you look at that signature, there's very little shake in that signature. And then there's some other guys you get that are 30 years younger and they have, you know, a shaky signature. So, yeah, I think over time, some of these guys, their signature has changed a little bit. But I, you know, I, I think it's amazing that they're, they're still doing it. And I love talk about another side avenue of guys. I want to get anybody that's over 90 years old. I'm trying to actively get in all the sports because they're just not going to be with us forever. And, you know, it's so cool when you get their signature. And I, I hope that they get some joy out of knowing that they're remembered for their time in whatever sport that they played, that someone is still interested in them in their careers. And when I do send out my ttm, like we all do, we send, you know, a letter of request. And I always try to make it a little bit personal. I try to take something from their career to mention and talk about so that they know that I'm, that I'm, you know, caring about them as what they did as far as not just getting their autograph. So we talked a bunch of baseball and mentioned the hockey teams there among the defunct teams there. I always love hearing a Cleveland Barons mentioned in there. So I'm like, yes, there we go. Got it. Got them in there, right? And there's a couple of guys that play for the Seals, the Barons and the Stars. So if I can get something on all of those logos, that's a pretty cool. That's a pretty cool get. Definitely is. So do you do other sports too, or those just kind of your main two there? Do you get into any football and basketball at all? No. I mean, on my channel. I love it. I will steal the line from Wide World of Sports, you know, bringing you the constant variety of sport. If I can get multiple sports. The episode that just launched this morning has five sports. It has the big four and golf. I've tried to look for some oddball sports and some other things. Recently I got a fan mail from someone living in Spain who sent me three autograph soccer cards from the 70s. They're vintage soccer cards. One was from the 60s and a couple from the 70s. So any sport, I'm interested in all the sport because again, I feel like that might be a little bit of a niche that I can set myself apart on the video channel having, you know, the great variety. I love the basketball tall boys from 6970 and then the big boys from 76. And that format of card, which we've seen the same size in the 94 jam session cards. We've seen it in the game day football cards and Some other varieties of cards that the. The companies came out with in later years, the same size. They just lend themselves so well to autographs that I love getting those. So anytime I get a chance, you know, to send. Send those out, I do. Niche sports are always great for this. I mean, that's. I was doing a lot of indoor soccer for a While from about 2016 to a couple years or so ago, and it's amazing when you can find them. You find other people who collect those things go, oh, my God, I thought I was the only one doing this. And then you never know what you're going to strike up there after something like that. Yeah, yeah. And I have people that will comment on certain sports when I show it, if I have. You know, racing is very big in the area where I live in Pennsylvania. Here we're not all that far away from Pocono and the tricky Triangle. So there's a lot of racing fans. Mario Andretti lives in the town where I work. So whenever I get racing, there's certain guys that'll comment on racing. Whenever I get vintage basketball, I'll see other guys chime in. So for someone that's trying to build this channel to get, you know, I'm getting closing in on 400. I'm at 390 now. You know, anytime I can, you know, diversify and. And try to find another avenue for people that will maybe enjoy what I'm doing because I'm having such a great time doing it. I want that, you know, to. To come through the screen and I want people to know that we're having such a great time and they. They join along. Yeah. Real quick here before we wrap things up, give people a quick rundown of where they can follow you on social media. Just once again, you know, the YouTube channel, everything and anywhere else that they can find you at. Yeah. So on YouTube, it is @ttmbob64. On the YouTube channel, I do Facebook Bobbertain B R I T T A I n an extra T in there as opposed to Great Britain. And I do post my stuff there. And then a lot of the sites that are on Facebook, I'll jump in, I'll share, you know, the episode in the link so that people can. Can find me that way. I also post on X and some of the other ones. I just don't feel like I have, you know, quite the following as on Facebook and of course, you know, YouTube. So if you can check me out, if you can subscribe, that'd be awesome. I'd love to get over 400 here soon. My goal is to get to 500 by summer vacation. Last year, I went on summer vacation right after we launched the channel. I had five subscribers. All of those subscribers, all five had the same last name as me because they were all family and I was sitting on the beach with them and I said, hey, by the end of this week, I want to get to 10. And now we're closing in on 400 less than a year later. And I'm having a blast doing it. So I'd love to keep growing the channel and, and keep spreading the word of this fun and great hobby that you guys spread every couple of weeks. And, and I love listening, like I said, and I'd like to do the same and share the wealth with how much fun it can be. As soon as I get done editing this, I'm gonna be sending you a follow there too. So you have a DFW grapher on board there as well. I don't, I don't do as much YouTube as I did a few years ago, but still I try to follow them on there as much as I can. So I'll be right there here in just a moment for sure. Yeah. And if anyone sends, you know, watches, I make the my address. I don't hide my address when I show it, but the address is always there. Send me a self address stamped envelope. I'll send you one of my cool channel stickers. I think they're pretty cool. It's a pretty cool logo I could show you here. So there you've seen it. But we'll get that out to, to your followers if they, if they reach out, I'll send them a, send them a sticker. Great. So there you go. Get yourself a sticker. Give Bob a follow and see follow his TTM adventures as well. Bob, any other final thoughts here before we wrap up this segment here? No, you know, this is what I love about this hobby most of all. It's a lot of fun to go to the mailbox. And for most, you know, folks that are adults, you don't really love going to the mailbox. Not all of our mails, not all our bills come through the mail all the time anymore. But it's usually no fun once you get to be an adult to go to the mailbox. Right. But for ttmers, we sprint to the mailbox after we know the mailman came because we want to see what we got. But the biggest thing for me is how helpful this community is to each other. The group of guys that I started watching when I before I launched my first episode, trying to kind of build what I wanted to do on YouTube. Those guys have all become friends. Not that in, in some cases, we've never met. I've met Mike from the Hot Corner in person and Keith from the Lonely Basement Baseball cards. Lonely Basement Keith. I've met him in person, but not everyone I've met. But through social media and things, we've become friends and we help each other out. And, you know, I know you have that same kind of following with the folks that, that listen to your podcast. So that, to me is the best part, that we're looking out for each other, helping each other, and that it's a great community of people enjoying a hobby together. So that is the most fun as we end this. It's always something that the show's founder, Jeff Baker, always tried to promote as well. And I try to carry that on. And yeah, it's definitely great to see it from so many others around here, here as well. So once again, Bob Brittain joining us here in Collector's Corner. Thanks again for jumping on here with us. I love it, Drew. Thank you so much. And I hope we can talk again down the road. Well, big thanks to Bob for joining us in Collector's Corner. And I want to remind you, if you'd like to be on Collector's Corner, shoot us an email. Aaron, what's that email address here for the show? That is ttmcastahoo.com There you go. So if you want to get on and talk about your collection, how you got into it, any of that kind of stuff, feel free to contact us. We'll get you on an upcoming episode. I know we've already got one person booked for June already along with we'll have Clemente Lisi in the first week of June. We've got a Collector's Corner coming up later with guess. We already have booked, but we may have an opening. I believe August is when we'll probably have another one coming up. So get on for that one there. If you haven't been on the show yet and even if you have been on the show, hey, we'd love to have you back again. Talk about some of the stuff that you've added to your collection. Right now, let's go ahead and move on in to Making the Grade. From the grading lab to your ears, this is Making the Grade. Making the Grade is a summary of what's been going on in the world of grading here in our hobby. As we get some great info from Gem rates. And we'll talk a bit more about them here in a moment. But first, Aaron, what are our numbers here for the previous week? All right, so for the week of May 11th through the 17th, PSA graded 545.5000 cards. That is up 15 for them. CGC graded 174.2000 cards, which is up 23%. Beckett graded 27.9000 cards, which is up 12%. SGC graded 10.3000 cards, which is down 43% for them. And rounding out our list, TAG graded 7.7000 cards, which is up 16% for them. And all in all, there was a total of 765.6 thousand cards graded the week of May 11th through the 17th. That's just stunning. I mean, there's a couple weeks in there where, you know, it's like PSA up 1%, down 1%, up 1%. Now they're up 15 and we're at three quarters of a million cards graded by the big five here in this previous week. That's. I'm just stunned by this anytime I see a number like that. And so with that, a big thanks to Gym Rate for providing that. And they also provide us with the big three. This week's big three is brought to you by gemrate.com whose cards are hot and whose cards are cold this week? Let's find out from our friends@gemrate.com the Big Three is exclusive to TTM Cast. You will find these numbers nowhere else courtesy of Gemrate. They provide us with individual players and how they're moving in the grading portion of the hobby as we look and see who's up and who's down. And one individual card that's been big here in grading in the previous couple of weeks. First off, we've got three players moving on up the list, including a couple of hall of Fame names here in two sports. As leading things off, Dirk Nowitzki is up 88% over the previous two weeks. Patrick Waugh coming into the second spot, 69, increase on that. And coming in third, soccer player Lamin Yamal is up 56%. Yamal's most graded card over the past two weeks was his 2023 tops Chrome UEFA club competitions, rook card card number six. In that set, it is up seven times over what it was over the previous two week period in grading. So World cup fever definitely starting to hit all over the hobby, including in grading, as you see there, with Yamal being on the Big three this week, Meanwhile, we've got a few guys moving on down the list. Aaron, who's, who's falling off here a bit. All right, so we, to start our list, we have F1 darling and superstar Lewis Hamilton, who is down 19%. Christianano, Cristiano Ronaldo. That's a lot of O's. And is the, the hockey or hockey goodness. The soccer supernova is down 20. And rounding out our list, uh, Chitaro Maureen is down 29 this week. So there you go. That's the big three for this week. And once again, a big thanks to Gem Rate for providing all of that to us. You get some great info from them on Instagram and on Twitter. At gemrate, they usually provide daily, weekly and monthly and yearly updates on all things in grading as well as, I mean, a whole lot of other really cool stuff on there, including things like some of the top sellers on ebay among graded cards and just some of the most graded players of all time. And of course, you want to get even deeper into some of those numbers, go and check out their website, gemrate.com right now. Sponsored by Resolution Photo Matching. We've got the stamp of approval. I bet you're wondering who earned this week's TTM cast stamp of approval sponsored by Resolution Photo Matching, the industry leader in game used authentication. Their res match confirms that your item is definitively identical and definitively unique to a player wearing or using that same item, delivering the highest possible added value. They also take their responsibility to the hobby seriously, shown by the creation of the Resolution Advisory Board made up of top collectors who ensure objectivity and client first decisions. Visit resolutionphotomatching.com to see their exceptional prices realized and get a quote today. Well, the stamp of approval is just a chance for Aaron and I to give a thumbs up to anything from the previous week. Sometimes it's related to sports, sometimes related to collectibles, sometimes it's both, sometimes it's neither. And so for mine, I'm going to start out with a restaurant here in Arlington that I've mentioned. I think I've mentioned them on the show before. But they've had some big news for them this week and that is smoke and Ash down in the southern part of Arlington, Texas. They're an Ethiopian Tex Mex barbecue restaurant. And yeah, they are. I mean they are really great. They were recognized by Michelin when they did their Texas, their first Texas rankings as they didn't get one of the Michelin stars, but they were listed as a place that is definitely worth checking out. And I Would definitely agree with that. I've been there about three times now, I think to in total and always have a great experience there. But their owners and chefs there have been named semi finalists for the 2026 James Beard Awards in the Texas region. James Beard Awards are basically like the Oscars of the culinary world, essentially. So winning one of those is absolutely amazing. Even getting to be named a finalist or semi finalist is absolutely huge. So big congratulations to them. Yeah. If you're ever in the Arlington area, make sure you go down and check them out. If you like barbecue, if you like Ethiopian food, they are so good. Definitely worth checking out. And so my stamp of approval for this, this episode, smoke and Ash barbecue in Arlington and their James Beard Award semifinalist spot for my stamp of approval. This is going to be a little bit self serving, so be warned. But so we, we just recently finished our, our gymnastics season for those of you who should know by now that I, that I run a gymnastics gym and I am the, the head coach of our, of our competitive team. So we just finished our state meet last weekend and we won another championship. So we are now five time AGA champions, which is somewhat of an accomplishment. And we've won all of those since 2023. So. So yeah, I think five championships in, in basically what amounts to three calendar years is, is not so bad. Yeah. And so my, my coaching staff did a, did a tremendous job. The girls did an even better job, you know, and, and everything went our way that day. Gymnastics can be a little bit interesting when you're talking about who, who has it that day and who doesn't. Uh, but yeah, so we we've been very fortunate and, and our program, uh, has uh, has benefited from that. And so yeah, GSC Storm five time AJ Champions. Stamp of approval for today. Well done. And I mean with that, self serve all you want on that. I mean I did it last week with, you know, saying I'm in a new band and stuff. So I mean five time champion, that's, that is five more championships than I have coached a team too. So well done on, on that. So yeah, thank you with that. Let's go ahead and move on in now to the Verne wrap minutes. The Vern Rap minute is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Vern Rap, former major league manager, former minor league ball player. Our show's founder, Jeff Baker had mailed him not knowing that he had already passed away. And so we provide this as a service to all the collectors out there to let you know when somebody has passed away. In the world of sports, celebrity, music, movies, politics, anybody that's a good signer that you might consider writing to. We try to let you know if they have passed away so that you don't make the mistakes that we've made leading things off. Very surprising death just I believe either yesterday or the day before. Kyle Busch NASCAR driver and owner from 2001 to 2026. Kyle was a two time Cup Series champion. He was the 2005 Cup Series rookie of the 63 Career Cup Series wins. Also even more in the other levels of NASCAR racing. I believe he actually may have even won his race at Dover in the truck series just last last week or two weeks ago somewhere in there. But a very surprising, very shocking and sudden death there to him. Kyle's a good ttmr through about 20, 21 or so. He was 41 years old then. We also lost Craig Morton at the age of 83. He was a quarterback from 1965 to 1982 with the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos. He was a champion of Super Bowl 6 and he had 27000 passing yards in his career as well as 183 touchdown throws as well. And he was an excellent ttmer through this month. We also lost Bob Skinner a couple of weeks ago. Bob was an outfielder from 1954-66 with the Pirates, the Reds and the Cardinals. Bob is a three time All Star throughout his career. A 1960 and 64 World Series champion. Hit 103 home runs in his career. Father of Joel Skinner, longtime catcher for the White Sox, the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. Later was Indians manager as well. Bob himself was actually a coach later on with at least the Padres I know. And then I believe manager and coach of a couple of minor league teams throughout his lifetime as well. Bob was one of the best ttomers you could find all the way signing all the way up through earlier this month. He was 94 years old. We also lost Buzz Capra who was a pitcher from 1971 to 1977 with the new York Mets and the Atlanta Braves. In 1974 he was an All Star. He put together 16 wins that year and was the National League era leader with an ERA of 2.28 that year. And he was an excellent TTMR through this month. He was 78 years old. Another pitcher we lost was Rick Krueger. Rick pitched for the Red Sox and the Indians from 1975-78. Only appeared in 17 career games in that time. Had a 2 and 2 record though with those teams. Rick was an excellent TTM or through March of this year. He was 77 years old. There's a lot of significant names on this list, unfortunately this, this month or this fortnight. But we also lost legendary manager Bobby Cox as well at the age of 84. He was a third baseman from 1968 to 1969 with the New York Yankees and he was a legendary manager from 1978 to 2010 with the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays. During his career he was a.225 hitter with nine home runs. He was elected to the hall of fame in 2014. Uh, he has 2500 uh, wins as a manager and won uh, the 1995 World Series with the Atlanta Braves. And he was a rare tt been a tough week for the Braves as they also lost Ted Turner this in the last couple of weeks there. Turner of course was the team's owner. He was briefly their manager and just an overall cultural iconoclast known for his work in media. To start things out, he was with, he started up cnn, tbs, tnt, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network. I mean a lot of channels that, I mean we are all very familiar with to this day that are, I mean world changing channels in some case when you look at like CNN. He had one game as the Braves manager in 1977 before major league Baseball stepped in and said, no, we're actually going to enforce this rule that says you can't own and manage a team at the same time. So when Owen won as the manager of the Braves in his time there, but was always seen at games, of course he had Turner Field named after him and just. Yeah, I mean he owned the Braves from 1970s all the way, I think into the 2000 and tens even, maybe even past that. But Ted was an excellent TTM or through about 20, 22 or so. He was 87 years old. Well, that is a crazy story. I've. I consider myself to be somewhat of a baseball historian and I've never heard that story before. Yep. And so I guess, I guess that goes to show you that the Billy Hayward of or Haywood, I guess it is from Little Big League. I could uh, could never happen. You know, if. Can't do it, neither can you really. And if Ted Turner can't get away with it, then yeah, really, nobody can. Then we also lost Dick Hughes this week at the age of 88. He was a pitcher from 1966 to 1968 with the St. Louis Cardinals. He appeared in 68 career games and had a 20 and 9 record with a 2.79 ERA. He had a shoulder injury that ended his career pretty early on and he was an excellent TTMR through this month. Lastly, moving into the basketball world, we lost Jason Collins a couple weeks ago. Collins was a center from 2001 to 2014 with six NBA teams throughout his career. Known to be a defensive minded and intelligent center, he was probably not going to get you many points, but he was good for shutting down opposing big guys. He was also the first openly gay player in any of the Big four sports leagues. So cultural significance along with basketball significance. Jason was an occasional TTM or through about 2010 or so. He was 47 years old. Well, if you've lost anyone this week, our thoughts are certainly with you as we move on in now to our TTM returns. Was our mailbox full this week? Let's take a look at this week's TTM returns. It's the main reason why we're all here, why the show exists. We're going to look at the mailbox and see what we all got back here in the last couple of weeks. And it's been a fairly light few weeks here for me. I only got two in since our last episode there, but I did manage to mail out 35 of them earlier this week. So hopefully that's going to help things out here for the next few weeks. But hit up a lot of the UFL guys that I had missed out on on my first, uh, first mailing pass. Hit up a bunch of, I think a bunch of baseball ones in there as well. I mean, a little bit across every sport but especially football and baseball in there. But first up we got back John Ross, wide receiver down in the UFL there, former Cincinnati Bengals draft pick. Mailed three cards off to him through the UFL and got those back in about a month or so. So another nice one to add in from the UFL stuff there. And also got back Bill Curly, who was a forward and center with several NBA teams. I know at the very least he was drafted by the Pistons out of Boston College around 1994, 95, 96, somewhere in that range there. But Curly is currently the athletic director at my alma mater of Emerson College. So it's kind of cool to be able to say, oh, hey, wow, I actually have cards of somebody related to my school there. All right, we'll go ahead and send those off. And yeah, he signed four cards for me in about four months and dropped a note in there saying, hey, if you'd have any interest in Making a contribution to the Emerson athletic department. We would greatly appreciate it. So might send a. Send a bit their way but there you go. Like I said, got 35 mailed out this week so hopefully we'll have a little bit more to talk about in the early part of June. Aaron, I see you've got a few on your list here, so have at it. Let's see what you got. I, I thought you were gonna say that Curly wanted you to be the assistant GM or whatever. The athletic director. There is no chance in hell they want me anywhere near a basketball team. I mean I, I can, I can look at a defense and go okay, I think that's a 23 zone. But I'm only about like 60 certain on that. So. Yeah, I, I was gonna, I was gonna give you big props if that was the case, but unfortunately I guess. I guess you'll have to stick to your day job. Yes. So yeah, I gotta, I got a few back and I, I've. I think I sent out eight or 10 since our last show and I need to, I need to send out some more. I'm working on that. Uh, like I said, things have been kind of crazy the last little bit. Trying to get everything situated in my life. Uh, but I did get back a few uh, from uh, from the infamous boxes we got at the Dallas card show several years ago. So, So I got back former Chicago Bull Corey Blunt. He signed three of three for me. And uh, then along that. Those same lines I got back uh, former uh. Let me see here. I'm not even going to attempt to name all the tea played for but uh, former uh, Charlotte Hornet and uh, Philadelphia 76. Or I know that those are two, uh, Hersey Hawkins signed 404 for me. So I remember watching him play growing up. So that's always awesome to get back guys that you have memories of. And then I got the Cajun Cannon. Bobby A. Bear signed uh, signed three of three for me including uh, one of uh. I guess back then it would have been. Is it tops finest back then in the mid-90s. Uh, field generals with the uh, with the Atlanta Falcons. Uh, so that one looks super awesome. Maybe I'll post that one on uh, on Instagram for, for people to see. So yeah, he, he was great. Even inscribed the Cajun Cannon on one one of them for me. Then I got back former Seattle Mariner. I think he made it to the big leagues. Maybe not at least, at least Mariners farm hand, uh, former pitcher for them, Aaron Looper, uh, who now lives I believe in Edmond, Oklahoma. So that one was not a, uh, not a far jump for me. And I had a couple cards for him already on hand from my, from my busting Wax days back in the, in the early 2000s. Yeah, so that, that was a good one. And then finally, former White Sox catcher Matt Marullo signed, uh, all four of my cards and wrote me back a really nice note, uh, thanking me for being, being a fan. And so, uh, those are always super cool to get back through the mail. People appreciate you and, you know, appreciate, you know, you taking the time to ask for their autograph and, and send them, send them some nice words of encouragement. So I just looked it up because I knew of one other team that Hersey Hawkins played for. It turns out there's two. They only missed two. You got, you got 50 on this, so very well done there. And one of them was. I didn't even know that he had played for the Chicago Bulls for a season. Oh, really? He was there in the. Yeah, he was in the 99, 2000 season. And the one that I did know was the Seattle supersonics. I see. I don't know why I was thinking that he played for the, for the Cavs for a little bit. Obviously I was thinking of somebody else. The only reason I knew that he was at the Sonics was I think I got a Sonics card signed by him several years ago the last time I mailed him, probably six, seven, eight years ago, something like that. So if it hadn't been for that, I would have been like, yeah, 76ers and that's it. So, yeah, you would have. You, you, you did better than I would have if I hadn't mailed out the 1sonics card in there. So well done there. So there you go. I think that about does it for this, this month's week's Fortnite's episode here. Big thanks to Bob Brittain for joining us in Collector's Corner. Once again, big thanks to Aaron for sitting in the co host seat here and for Ruthie Baker for getting this show put together, sent out from our mouths out to your ears. And once again, if you're interested in getting on a sponsorship here with TTM cast, contact Ruthie, get with her, let her know what you'd like to do there. I mean, we've got all kinds of stuff open for anybody involved in the collectibles world. If you've got your own collectibles business, we would love to do it here. Just, you know, get on here as a Sponsor once again. Aaron, what is that email address? They can contact Ruth yet to get on as a sponsor. That is. TTMcastahoo.com also want to remind you one more time, we're in the final few days here of our order of Sig spot cards. If you'd like to get some ordered up, contact me@dfw graphermail.com Aaron, any other thoughts before we go ahead and wrap this one up? Yeah. And so if you want to see Drew, be able to. If Drew is able to name all the teams that people live. I'm really pushing this. This, like, this is going to be phenomenal content. If you, if you want to see Drew not be able to look up who the teams are that each player has played for. Send us. Send us your guys. Edwin Jackson, Jesse Rosco immediately come to mind. But. But yeah, let. Let's go send. Send us some hard ones so that we can, we can have some fun making. Make. Get some cool content for y'. All. I'll score 50 on Edwin Jackson because I'm just gonna name every single major league team. So that's. I mean, that's 50 right there. So. And I will say, if you're, if you're gonna send these in, let's keep them to my lifetime and preferably to my time as a fan of Sports, which is 1990 to the present. I mean, if you start naming all these guys that play in the 1930s and screw you for, you know, violating the, the, the sanctity of the game, not quite maybe that far, but, you know, the spirit of the game. There he goes. Don't violate the spirit of the game. Keep it to. In my lifetime, please. I will say as long as they played in my lifetime. So even if it's a guy who played from, like, you know, Rick Serone, for example, who is, what, 1977 or so, 75. Maybe even up to like 1992, 93. At least that's a couple years in my time as a fan. So let's keep it to, you know, 90s to the present. So. Yeah, but I'm game. Well, we'll do this. We'll try this during the national trip. Our next show is going to be June 6th. We'll have Clemente Lisi on as we'll go into Clemente's world talking about a preview of the World Cup. Of course, you know, the biggest global sporting event is going to be right here in the United States starting in the middle of June. So, hey, we're going to get a preview of everything related to that and all the kind of collectible stuff going on with it in our next episode with Clemente Lisi. With that, we wish you many happy returns and we'll see you next time here on ttm. Cast. Everyone be good. It.