Season 5 Ep 35 Fake Downtowns and Uncle Terry

Hello and welcome to the Ball Card Show, the sports podcast for the Sports Collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary Lomaster. This is season five, episode 35 of the podcast. It is fall. Finally, it's no longer hot in Ohio. I'm still wearing shorts and a t-shirt though. I'm shorts and hoodies. My favorite weather of the year. You go one or the other. I'm built for this. A coworker we had named Dave told this story one time. He was working on somebody's garage. He said something to them, just like small talk. You're in somebody's house. You got to small talk, have them feeling good, make them feel comfortable with you. He said something about this is like perfect shorts and hoodie weather. The dude looked over at his wife and goes, what'd you just say? He said, it's like perfect shorts and hoodie weather. Hold on a second. Hey, honey, come here. Brings his wife out. Dave, you tell him what you just said. He said, it's good shorts and hoodie weather. Honey, you tell him. You tell him. Everybody's confused. He believed he invented that. Everyone watching was also confused about where that was going. He invented shorts and hoodie. I'm pretty sure he didn't. We got a lot to jump into. A little bit of news. We're going to do a fun little segment today that we haven't done before. I have to introduce you to somebody. It's going to be a part of the show. One to be a part for quite some time. We've been keeping them at bay, but as we're starting to do more video, I'm going to get to introduce our uncle to you. I think that'll be- It should be interesting. You won't be bored with that one. Hang on for that here in just a little bit. We're going to do rapid fire rants today where we just have a take for each of us. We ramble on about that. We know that you guys have fun with that. Let's jump in with a little bit of news right away. I'll start out with something positive because it's usually a little bit more negative. Sure. I just thought this was cool because of my age and just remembering what this was. A recent 1989 Jordan one-on-one. What was that product? Starting lineup. Yeah. Kenner made starting lineup. Kenner made starting lineup. It was the one where it was him and Isaiah Thomas one-on-one in the same packaging. That card, the Jordan card out of that was recently opened up out of the plastic packaging. Remember how it had the mold on it? The card was sent off. It GM'd out a PSA 10 and recently sold for $15,000. Yeah. Insanely low population card. Those cards usually got played with. If they were left in the packaging, if you've seen the packaging, most of these things get crushed or they've been left where there's heavy light on them so they yellow out. The card fades. To lose in the packaging and just playing bumper cars the whole time? I'm willing to bet. I haven't looked, but I'm willing to bet the population on that is well under 100 on a PSA 10. It's got to be low, but again, we've been talking about that GOAT market. We're seeing it in shows. Now, ultra modern football has picked up a little bit now that we're a few weeks in, but it's definitely slower than the last couple of years. It's not last year's rookie quarterbacks that are selling. Right, but the GOAT market continues to climb. You and I keep buying Jordan, Kobe. Bought three Jordan slabs. Brady, big football names like stuff 15, 20 years ago, early 2000s. If you're getting stuff that usually was that 15 to 100, you might want to go back through your collection and take a peek especially $50 and up probably around that 300 mark and then the high end stuff, especially it is taking off. You may have paid a little strong on a Jordan and now you have tons of room on it. Might be two to three X what it was since you bought it if you bought it more than three months ago. It's a lot of fun. Hey, go check out those starting lineups that you have that all your buddies told you were complete junk. Maybe you have this one and maybe you have the card with it and maybe it's in good enough condition to grade and maybe it would Jim out and maybe you would have $15,000 sitting around. It's a big stack of maybes, but who knows? Worked out for somebody. So apparently one sold at 15 K, another one just jimmed recently. So we're going to see what happens with that, with the market climbing. Like, are we really doing this? What's next? The Haynes cards. You remember the Haynes? I guess that was a little bit later. That was a little bit later. Hey, peak COVID. Those Haynes do. Remember they did a re-release at the dollar store and it was dollar general Dollar Tree. You bought Haynes underwear or shirts. It was a pack and it had a cards with Haynes or fruit of the loom. I'm pretty sure it was fruit of the loom because the fruit of the loom card was, this is a massive, this is a massive thing to figure out. Go ahead. Okay. I'm pretty sure it was free to loom because Jordan, I'm wanting to say there was a fruit of the loom card set back in the nineties. Oh, this would be more recently. Okay. So I'm right about the Haynes. Okay. In COVID. Okay. Okay. But I, do you remember what I'm talking about? I mean, fruit of the loom had the corner market on the undies. Yeah, they did. Especially tidy white. Yeah. Now we've got, now we've got pouches and vents and underwear. Now we have breathable fabric. Um, yeah. Did you ever, did you go down this road? I do. Okay. I just remembered. I don't know if you remember this at all, but there was like a little period in the nineties when it was, um, Joe boxer and they were like flannel boxes and they had a thick band and you would like tuck a baggy shirt and it would show that you had the boxers and then you would sag just a little bit, not too much, but just a little bit. For the first 30 plus years of my life, I was full team tidy whities. Then I went to full team boxer brief. Nobody wanted to picture underwear. That's not what I was asking about. I was asking about a fashion trend. I thought it was stupid. I'll tell you what underwear I wore for 30 years for 30 years. But yeah. So anyway, runs in the family. Yeah. Yeah. But the Hanes cards, where were we even going with this? You were talking about the Jordan starting lineup, but maybe the Hanes card. Oh yeah. Maybe they'll get a little bit of love next. All right. We were positive. Can we be negative now? We're going to have to be tops basketball released. Exciting news released at a reasonable price point. Where's resale on that. Have you seen, I didn't ask. Um, I think the MSRP is 189.99. Okay. So it was price. Yeah. 110. I was expecting to land between two and two 50. Um, one really important thing to note. And I went and looked this up. I didn't see any different information as well. Luca does not seem to be in this product. Yeah. Um, so there was conversations. Is he Panini exclusive autograph? What would that have to do with his name, image, and likeness being in a tops product? Are we making too much of this? Why do we keep having star players not in fanatics products? Would I think be Cal Raleigh and then Luca, I feel like these are now again, Cal Raleigh's trajectory. I think he's blown a lot of people away this year. There was a moment of surprise, but he wasn't, he's good. Yeah, he was good. Luke is an established necessity in the hobby for basketball. The question is, and I think that the question people are asking is the wrong question. Oh, the question is, cause I'm going to tell you the question. That's the wrong question. Is Luca Donchick a member of the NBA players association? Cause you don't have to be a member of the NBA players association. If you don't want to be just like the NFL, there are guys who opt out. Let me find out. So if he's not a member of the NBA NBA players association, then he would have to have a contract negotiated with fanatics individually for his name, image, and likeness to be used. Luca is a member. So he is a member. So now it's weird because they have a blanket license with the NBA PA. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. So I think it's, it's two products in the same year. So I just think that's a little bit strange that that's happening now. Fanatics is probably smart not to just put somebody on blast. That's also potentially going to make them a ton of money. Once this gets straightened out, my guess is if I'm reading between the lines, whatever happened late summer, early fall, it caused fanatics to be like, you know what? We're cool being chill until January for some of this stuff. And I wonder if part of it wasn't, Hey, these exclusive, you know, autograph deals, like you wait until 2026. And if you move before that, we have legal ground to at least make it expensive and difficult for you in this transition. I think that's what's happening. I have no factual basis to go off of, but I've had enough caffeine this morning to believe in myself. Speaking of Luca. Okay. Did you see, he made a guest appearance on a very famous web TV show this week. I'm scared of what you're going to say. If you want to be really entertained, go watch Luca Donchick on hot ones. Oh, that'd be good. Yeah. He's on it this week. He's got to be soft when it comes to eating spicy. It was very, when he got to the bomb folds like a chair. When he got to the bomb, it was, it was intense. Now peak Mavs Luca would have torn through that. Oh, I think got him on kale soup. He was like, Oh, you called me fat. Okay. Yeah. He's like, I can eat wings. No, you can't Luca. And you know what? Overall, you made the right decision for your wallet, for your body, for your longevity. I don't think his wallet matters. Hang with us eating wings. No, we know what we're doing. You know who could, Gary eats the bones. I can eat the whole bone guys. I, I, when we talk about grabbing a bite, if he says wings, I have to think, do we have guests with us? I'm not joking. I'm not joking because he takes it. He takes a wing, by the way, not a morsel left on the course. Many people would agree with that's fine. Some people are a little different than be like, yeah, that bite doesn't look so great. I would rather have more wings and leave some meat on them. But when he's done with a flapper, he's not done with the flat and he bites the ends of the bones up and choose up the marrow and whatever remnants of tendon or whatever, crunching it. Like it's not weird. It's not weird. You eat. So that's the edible parts. So yeah. And if you think that's weird, you should definitely try to go out to eat with us and watch what happens there. Especially if they have weird food on the menu. He can't wait to show that. Absolutely. All right, Luca. Now let's move on to something that happened at a show. We were at Reese's in Xenia. This was wild towards the end of the show. Xenia had a nice wave like mid morning to early afternoon, but it was a little slower start. I mean, Buckeyes had a noon football game in general. States that have a lot of card shows are starting to experience a little more saturation. So, and that's okay. That's going to happen. And some of that's naturally healthy for it to correct itself. But we had somebody come walking up. It's a dealer that we have set up across from and most shows that were set up that are sizable in Ohio. He's set up there. He's has a business, been doing it a while. But I think if I recall, just in the last couple of years, uh, doing this, like we are with the, I think he just started setting up probably in the last year. Yeah. Anyway. So he comes walking over to us now, reminder at this show, we are not an authority. We are just another vendor that's set up there. People, um, more people in Ohio know who we are than elsewhere. Um, but yeah, I think the reason he came over is we'll tell the story in just a minute is one thing that I do like about the reputation that we seem to be gaining is those guys will not lie to you, even if it's not what you want. And that's what this situation was. So dealer had purchased a downtown, walked it up to us with the person that had sold it. Our understanding is it had been a couple hours. It had been a couple hours and the dealer was like having some issues, some curiosities about the card. So he came walking over to us. We were actually a little bit busy at that time, but he brings the card up. I take a look at it. It's a Donra's dual downtown, uh, Odunza and DJ more black, black Donra's horizontal hands me the card. It's in a mag. The first thing I realized is the hell is this? Yeah, this is not a Donra's black downtown. Now the irony of the moment is not lost on us because in a room full of dealers, there may be many things that we could be an expert in the room on, but the downtown market is not one of those. We are well known for saying that we don't do case hits. We've thought about making t-shirts that say downtown suck. Yeah. Yeah. So this walks up to us. It's an ironic moment, but I can tell what the dealer's actually asking. He was like, is something off here? He didn't even say it. As soon as I look at the card, something is off. It looked like it had donut glaze across it. Like it wasn't, it wasn't right. The card stock was very like thicker than heritage. Um, you could just see that it was basically two laminates that have been placed on this. You turn the card over, no one-on-one marking shiny back. The Donra's did not have a stamp. It was just a smooth surface. It wasn't like stamped in where you would be able to feel that there were so many things wrong, but the problem was you had no idea what I was asking you. No. And I was busy. He thought he was in the middle of something, which if you're in the middle of a deal or I'm in the middle of the deal, the thing that we do is we go up, we kind of stand there and it's like, do not, I'm not letting you go to the next conversation before I interrupt you or something really cool has walked up. So he just sees me hand him a black downtown and he's like, well, Jason's words were here. Check this out. And he says it just like that. There's no like weirdness. And, and so the first thing I do when he asked me that question is he's want me to check value. So I just, I don't even really pay attention to the card. I just immediately open my phone and start to go to car ladder. And then I feel an elbow and he leans in quietly. He goes, no, dude, I think it's fake. Um, and so we get to looking at this thing and like we said, we're now pause. This is good. I want you to pick this up. Okay. Dealer has brought the guy that sold him this. Yes. Now if you opened up chat GPT and you said, go ahead, go ahead. I know exactly where you're going, but do it. You've already started. Hey, could you draw me a picture of a serial scammer at card shows? Leave no detail. And embrace all stereotypes. My God, it GPT would have done this. It would have taken 10 takes for them to get anywhere in the vicinity of that. And the best part about this conversation we're having right now. is we're holding back so much I said something similar on the audio version of the podcast about two or three years ago and Jason gave me so much crap for it but it's just the truth if you saw this dude's profile picture on Facebook you'd be like oh hell no I'm not buying anything from that guy no I was just gonna say somebody that I think would be scamming at a card show but I yeah the difference is you go anyway yeah the difference is I'm right you're wrong okay you said very insensitive things in that episode you guys are more than welcome to go back and look at that but at the exact moment where I hand it to him and I give him the elbow and I'm like I don't think this is real like I said I think this is fake that guy starts going man is there a bathroom around here I gotta yeah and like three or four people like you're fine so turns out it's not good Gary finally is like I just keep saying to the dealer and we're not there's two ways to handle this stuff there's like an old school vibe where it's like take them out in the streets and beat them for having a fake card in there yep I like to do the thing where I see no style I will present three or four outs in the conversation and I did it like four times to lie to de-escalate the moment and still get to the end result so it was like so where did you come across this he was like I pulled it out of a blaster I'm like wow no you didn't but he keeps sticking to this I was like are you sure you didn't like buy a lot because maybe somebody slid this into a stack bye-bye this wasn't part of a collection you didn't actually buy this from somebody else because if they're here I keep trying to make it where it's not your phone give him an out nope nope and then I was like well I guess you need to reach out to panini because I've never seen them put a fake downtown in their product and at this moment I take the time as the dude's face has drained of all color and he's again asked about the bathroom I take the moment to just turn my phone around and show him the Etsy listing that I just found with that exact card for $29.99 and it's at this point that he realizes that he has done yes yeah he is he has found out that he's in a world of hurt this dude's about six four he's taller than you probably six five he was a little bit taller you were six three oh yes I'm shrunk about six five the dealer is four inches shorter than me oh he's a tiny and he looks up like you owe me some money yeah going nowhere way I see it I need about three hundred sixty five dollars the next thing that happens is he says the amount yes a black downtown it's a one-of-one one-on-one that card cuz it would have been rookie rookie it's a $15,000 card yeah I mean let's be conservative call it 10k yeah you're not buying three hundred sixty five bucks my first thought is there were signs yes you did and it's okay that's the reality I don't mean it I don't everyone because I have made purchases before I got excited about and it wasn't as good because somebody said oh it's this and this and this and this and this and this if it's too good to be true it is two things to look for one is it is the price way off I think across the board dealers that have had this happen to them shop owners this happens to people all the time so one if you do something with cards long enough it's gonna happen to you it happened to us with a whatnot purchase a few months back yeah there was some vintage cards that were put in different holders that were a little more scuffed up you couldn't see they were bad fakes but they were about $300 worth of our purchase yeah and they were like strategically placed in there we screwed up it was completely our fault but in this particular situation and a lot of times it shows you're gonna get an offer on a card that's way below what somebody should be asking right if somebody has a case full of cards and they know what everything is and then they break out this card and act like they don't know what this is and they want less than a tenth of value right that should be a major red flag and so just a reminder all of us like if the price is too good then I would even say this man that's a great deal for me I'm happy to do that but I am at 3% of value why are you valuing it at that would be a good question because sometimes people don't know people don't know what some inserts are even people that open a while and now that's a thing with ultra modern to now a downtown is not in that category but there are so many inserts now and super short prints that just look like cheaper inserts at times that it's easy for that to happen is the price too low if you ask a question do you get an answer and then the next thing I would say to be really careful with is when somebody is talking up and explaining a card to you the whole time that you're looking at it it's almost like the more you look at it the more they're trying to bring your attention to them and not the card that's a red flag for me so it was really kind of awkward this guy had some cash on him but he'd already been walking around the show spent some of it he didn't have the full amount to give back to the dealer which would have ended differently for you and me than him like we would have walked him right to an ATM maybe driven him to one like you're giving me money you're paying me back but honestly we would hopefully would not have picked up the card just because we know that yeah enough there are cards that we don't know enough that we don't mess with you know no but there's no such thing as a shiny back like silvery back downtown yeah exists and never has existed there's a film you can buy on eBay or Amazon people are using to have fake silver rookies you can walk into Hobby Lobby or well yeah buy it yep but it's a cricket film yeah but the the way we usually see that play out is when you retail skews just drop that have bigger hits and like the silvers are gonna you know yeah they're gonna be worth 30 40 bucks for like three weeks before everything gets sent off all right that's where people were scamming that so just a quick reminder to you it still happens they're still fake cards running around the fakes are getting a little better if you would have held that mag out to me from five feet away I've been like oh that's sweet that you got that card yeah but upon closer inspection not a chance in this world so a valuable reminder to all of us yeah and if if the card itself seems a little weird and you combine that with somebody being the walking stereotype of a scammer just don't hand them any money just say hey you know what it's not for me and if you're a hundred percent sure it's fake just say hey man nothing personal I'm not gonna let you rip anybody else off with this card today you come back at the end of the show I'll hand it back to you but you're not coming across the table and taking it that's how I would have you know if that would have happened to me and I'd spent money on it it's a fake now his argument was that he opened it from a pack but if you get to the point where it's like so obvious that it's fake yes I'm keeping this card as collateral if I ever see you at a show again yeah like if I feel like it's intentional yeah I've we've had that conversation with people before we have people on that list and I have their fake stuff in my case I have no shame in that because how else is there accountability right keeping people out of that space that are intentionally scamming is the right move so that's what I would do I would keep it as collateral you know yeah if you show up again here everybody's gonna find out about this card yeah like let's just not do this anymore there are people you're taking advantage of to that don't even realize it and I think that happens sometimes too especially like a kid it's like I got a great deal on this they brought it was like it was the Pittsburgh show we had some kids walking up with some fake autos and color blasts like Xerox like yeah bad and I mean again this is a situation that occurred Jason gave the guy four times that he could have been like oh man maybe it's not intentional or if it is intentional the guy's smart enough to know but when he kept doubling down on no I pulled it from a pack no I pulled it from a pack no you didn't here's the third time that's what here's the Etsy listing you bought it from he said he said I found it he's like oh you did it's on Etsy so anyhow tales from card shows and again you this weekend let's keep it moving guys I'm not saying that we're psychic I'm not saying we have ESPN what I am saying is we called this yeah GameStop has announced now again you wouldn't have to be brilliant to pull this off for those of you that are already putting something negative in the chat with this clip you don't have to be brilliant to figure out that this was happening GameStop and PSA have partnered up with a brand new repack that is digital that offers buybacks that offers an opportunity to submit your card immediately to eBay so just just a quick reminder one turnkey solution good for new collectors I have no clue what's going on that you can take your cards into GameStop there's a local retailer probably within an hour of most people half hour for most that they can have a place to drop their cards off to PSA send them off and PSA has a service well they'll buy your card outright give you an opportunity to run it on eBay some cards are ending up in a repack now this repack that they're offering is called power packs it sounds like it's very similar to the way arena club is set up it's very similar to that but let me get into the weeds a little bit so I went to the PSA website to try to read the fine print always on there to know like what is being offered so it is like those digital repacks you can open it up you'll have an instant offer there are different tiers of packs you can open I think five different ones they say that the buyback offer will be 90% based off of card gliders estimated value minus a 6% fee for the buck for the purchase so Gary 90% is taking 10% off of the value yeah and then you go another six that sounds like 84% okay so we're now we're at 84% you also have the option of listing that card with PSA in their eBay store immediately which is a service they offer where they were doing a promotion if you want to spend a little less money get your cards graded a little bit quicker if you agree to auction it through eBay then then you can do that now they're now they're offering where they'll do a buyback at 84% immediately they will offer the option for you to vault it with them now there are vault fees anytime that you decide that you want the card to be shipped to you plus a shipping charge so essentially the place where you drop cards off to grade them are selling you cards and the grade that a card receives determines the value of the cards and yet again we still have people saying there's no conflict of interest this is just a general net positive for the hobby you're being too critical and also by the way some of you idiots we're saying that's not gonna happen they're not gonna do their own repack where they're submitting grades yeah well again that's not gonna happen Gary the idea that any of this is long-term good for the hobby is silly what it is is very good for PSA because now they're generating revenue at every single stop a card makes in its life cycle right outside of being ripped from a pack from the time a card comes out of a pack PSA has a very high likelihood of touching a piece of the revenue at every stop along the way for that card when it gets graded they get revenue if you decide to sell it to them for their buyback offer when they throw it back into a repack they get revenue if you decide to list it on their eBay consignment store they get revenue at the end of the day for them it's a great business decision but overall for the hobby the idea that this doesn't scream conflict of interest is you're intentionally just putting your head into the sand and going like it's a pure conflict of interest and by the way as this is happening SGC is dead guys like we yeah that's like SGC is intentionally being choked out so now you need BGS to make a push if there is a competitive sports card grading company yeah because CSG has it's just non-sport it's massive yeah it's massive but the they've been around now in the sports world for as a strong president taken over four years and it's just their slabs don't feel nice they're great slabs but they don't sell I mean a 10 is what maybe 20% overall if you're lucky and anything less than that you got to take it out to sell it so one thing that's interesting to me is there are a lot of collectors what I would call probably more flippers but they like to say they're collectors right mm-hmm and they love this because they're like finally dealers can't be lowball me because PSA has an offer at 90% but let me remind you yeah you have a card that you want to sell us and your counter-argument to an offer is well PSA is offering me this a couple things I'd have you consider that's really gonna suck for you when the table is turned and one of the 130 slabs we have out or when you want to buy a margin because that's gonna work both ways you want that slab at 80% the last one did this I don't care PSA is offering me more than you are at the table so at some point like this this is not a one-sided coin here if you're wanting to buy cards well it just got more expensive for you to like it all moves together guys it's not moving in the favor of the collector the whole market is moving and there is a pattern how much money can we get out of this stuff that's right that's that's that's how it's designed and if you run a business with it great if you're just trying to collect it's gonna get more expensive so it's easy to say well I'm gonna get better buys from dealers now because PSA is putting these offers well and this is the other part of that equation that a lot of people don't think about PSA when you go look at that offer that they show you when you scan there's a little asterisk beside it now this is very important this asterisk is what that asterisk says when you get to the fine print this is paraphrase is based on current value they don't pay you that when you click the button they pay you that after you send them the cards and they're checked into the vault at the point that they're checked into the vault PSA will recheck the value if there has been a couple of comps where that card has gone down you're gonna get less if it's gonna burn up they may pull the offer completely so you have a bigger rookie they play well PSA has an offer for you that you like it $100 for the card that player is injured by the time like a JJ McCarthy would be a good example three weeks before it's checked by the time and it's checked in, their value plummets, if it's like a new quarterback, they're gonna change the offer? Are you sure about that? Or pull it completely, yeah. So if you're somebody that wants to take advantage of this, I think, okay, so let's do it on a more positive note here. So let's just say for the collector, that includes you and me too, with our inventories, even stuff that we deal, right? Yep. PSA has this 90% offer. On weird stuff that might've been bricked in your showcase, it's probably worth taking a look to see. Yep. It's PSA offer, because they may be offering more than your sticker. Sometimes you have the right card in your showcase, but because there's no recent data, nobody will jump at it. But if PSA thinks it's worth 400, you may have been sitting on a 350 sticker for the last six months, and you'd be tickled to send that off. So take a look at those. There might be an advantage for you there as well. But this repack thing just seems off. Here's where you submit the card, the higher the grade, the higher the value, and then we turn around and sell it back to you. And 90% really means 84%. And the purpose of it, this is where I think people are getting confused. What PSA wants is for you to send them your cards to grade, and then never have them sent back to you. They're going to make you an instant offer the minute your grades pop. They want to buy those cards then. And if you choose not to, you can have them put in their vault, right? And then all this stuff is much quicker. But that's their overall goal here, is to buy stuff immediately without ever having to ship it back. And for you as a customer, it's like, well, I save on that return shipping cost, which can be high on a big card. Sure. Like all that type of stuff is part of it, but that's their purpose. They're not trying to just like beat your buddy. They want you to keep, they want to keep your cards. Yeah, but if there's a turnkey solution that's helpful for collectors or- It can be a great thing. If I was somebody that just had a ton of disposable income for this, this is kind of cool. Well, and if you're, so say your business model- All these dads about to be dropping their kids off at GameStop three times a week. Say your business model is that you buy cards and you're, and there are people like this that do it successfully. It's not us, but there are people. You buy cards raw and you pay very strong, a hundred, even 110% if it's clean, and you grade it to flip it. That's your entire business model. If that's the case, most of the time, when you get those cards back, you already have a buyer for them, whether it's a repack or somebody you have a relationship or whatever else. If that person is paying you 85 to 90% and PSA is going to pay you 85 to 90%, then you have replaced that repack or relationship with PSA and your life just got a lot easier. It can be a positive for people who have that business model. For everybody else, it's not so great. Yeah. Are you ready to go to football? Let's go. All right. Current record, closing the gap. Well, we both did bad this week, but Gary closed the gap. He's out by one. After two weeks of a former football player and veteran coach who knows football, getting it handed to him, the last few weeks, he's been closing the gap. He's within one. We're currently sitting at, I'm at 30 and 22. Gary's at 29 and 23, okay? We're right there. This last week, we did not do very well. Jason went one and four. I went two and three. Yeah, it was rough. I picked the games this time just to mix up. Gary's picked the last few. I'm just trying to change up the mojo. Trying to get a little bit luckier here, but we have some that aren't super easy picks. No, they're not. You want me to just circle mine? Yeah. You just fire this off and let's go. What are we starting with? All right, Giants at Broncos. Am I picking first? Yep. I'm going to ride that Cam Scadabow train. I'm going Giants. Same. Okay. Rams at Jags. One, two, three. Rams. Rams. Dang it. Eagles at Vikings. One, two, three. Eagles. I don't like it when this happens. Well, you picked the games that are easy picks. You think? I think so. Four and two, four and two. All right, anyway. Vikings are a bad team. Bucks at Lions. One, two, three. Lions. Dang it. The Bucks are just so beat up. I love Baker, but they're so beat up. This might be the only one. We gotta disagree on one, hopefully. Commanders at Cowboys. I'm going to go Commanders. I'm going Cowboys. Okay, there we got one. We got one. I just honestly did that to be different. All right. Okay. We could be tied next week. We could be. The Cowboys, in my opinion, the defense is terrible, but I don't think Washington's very good. I know they won yesterday, but is it just me or does Jaden's softball season feel a lot like C.J. Stroud's, like we've seen this movie before? He's not bad. C.J. Stroud wasn't bad, but it's not a step forward from last year. He was hurt, what, two weeks? He was out two weeks of the first six. He's completing like 59% of his passes. For me, the Jaden, that decision would, I probably need a couple more weeks. I can see where you're coming from. Yeah, it just feels that way. If we're sitting at like week nine and it's still the same thing, I think that it's definitely a little bit of a sophomore slump, but it's so hard to just burst onto the scene like he did and maintain, like it's just, you catch people off guard. You're doing new things. People don't have time to adapt. It takes a couple games for coaches to be like, all right, we got to do this with this person. You know, but it can happen. You know who else looked really good yesterday? Michael Penix. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah. What you can't do though is be like, I called it when, since you've called it, there've been a lot of times where that worked. No, that's not what I said. That's what I was saying. I'm just saying he looked awful good. That's what I said. You know who else looked good? B. John. Oh, B. John's, can we, that XRC Silver? This is not on our list. I will be shocked if that XRC Silver has moved much at all. B. John is one of the best players in football overall. His market is track. I think it. Bucky Irving has a stronger market than B. John Robinson. It's crazy. Okay. That is true. People like, but again, it's collectability. I think people just like Bucky. People just like Bucky. Yeah. You know what was fed down everyone's throats? Penix, B. John, the Atlanta market by Mr. Jeff Wilson over and over. Yeah, well, you know, that's fair. So it's like the default is don't do what he says. Well, that's great advice across the board. Okay. Do you, so last week, sorry, did you have something else? Well, no, I was, I was just going to ask if Jason's about to introduce you to somebody. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, let's sit. Do you have in your family a relative that you can count on for all the wrong kind of entertainment at a family holiday? Everybody, well, everybody has that one family member where they just don't know what they're going to say. Because we do. All right, so we haven't brought this up at this point. I mean, we've been doing this for five years now, but we have an uncle, our uncle Terry. He got us into cards. We try not to get him too fired up because he's one of those uncles. Once you get him going, he gets fired up and he's an intense man. That's one way of saying it. That's, but our uncle Terry brought us into this. So I didn't tell him that we had dropped video because he just, he actually has- He barely knows how to use a phone. He's got a cassette player taped inside of his vehicle. He barely knows how to use a phone. So he had to jitterbug for a very long time. So uncle Terry, he finds out that we were doing video episodes. He happened to stumble on to our interview last week, Breaks with Kyle, which if you haven't seen that, go back and check it out. Kyle is one awesome, awesome dude to talk with. The way he's doing repacks, his approach to repacks. But uncle Terry found out last week that there's some shady stuff happening in the repack space. He was not happy. He wasn't happy. So I've been putting it off. I've been hesitant, but he says that the people demand it. So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to my uncle Terry. Thank you to my nephews, Gary and Jason. My name is uncle Terry. This is uncle Terry's vault. And today we're speaking on a very serious subject running a month through the card community. And that is the repacking that's happening on Whatnot. And I'm here to tell every single one of you sellers on the application of Whatnot, I'm looking at you. And with every single one of you, know that your uncle Terry is coming to audit those damn repacks or grab bags as we used to call them. I've been hired by Whatnot. Well, they didn't answer my call. And I took that as an idea to lead a crusade as the Whatnot vigilante, coming for every single one of your repacks to make sure the value is what it says. And until I'm done auditing those damn repacks, I have decided to make every single one of you on Whatnot open nothing but old wax from here on out. Remember it, uncle Terry, the Whatnot vigilante. And I'm coming for all of you repacking. All right, Gary. I just don't know. There's one thing I need to tell you. What's that? When uncle Terry breaks out these three fingers. Oh no, it's about to go down. And they're all pointing. I'll tell you one thing, uncle Terry is, and it's not a liar. Or afraid of physical confrontation. Or afraid of confrontation. His audits are for real. The hobby is running amok. But I'm hoping that maybe uncle Terry's got it out of his system. Doubtful, but we'll see. So if you're out there playing games on Whatnot, be prepared, because uncle Terry will stop for nothing. He spent 20 years investigating Watergate afterwards to get to the bottom of stuff. So I know that it will be. That mustache is coming for you. It's thorough. It's coming for you. And if not, wax. Yeah, I actually like opening some of that stuff. But the Whatnot vigilante is out there. Be on the lookout. Who knows where uncle Terry will pop up next. You want to keep with some rants. I've got some rants for you. I do. Let's, yeah. All right, here we go. You're gonna go first. We're each gonna do one line, and then we have like 30 seconds to respond to the rant. Does that work? That works. All right, you go first. Older collectors do not hate younger collectors. I know there's a feeling out there from young people and new people to the hobby that these old guys hate you. They don't. They hate that you don't even seem to care about collecting. That all you're wanting to do is flip things. That's what they hate. I think that that can be true. That if I've been collecting for a long time and I grew up through just the sets, the vintage stuff, you built a set and you looked for the rookie, and now you see everybody chasing the cherry blossom dragon downtown Pandora, blah, blah, blah. And they don't wanna keep them, they just wanna get them and sell them. That's it. I can understand where that's coming from, but half of those guys, half of those old dudes that say that have their vintage stuff marked up at 300% of what the card has ever sold for in that condition. Yeah, it's- And then they're mad that you don't want to overpay to have that card to collect forever. Just because it's older. Yeah, that's fair. It's readily available. The tension between older and younger collectors, we see it on a weekly basis, especially from older dealers to younger collectors. That tension doesn't need to exist, but that's the root of it. Okay. All right, I'm gonna go my rant. This is new, guys, bear with us. But this is a way for us to just get all of our thoughts out here. I'm just gonna say it. Not all shows are created equal. Some card shows suck. They do. Some of them are well-promoted, poorly attended. Some of them are well-promoted, well-attended, terrible venue. Some of them are poorly promoted, poorly attended. Some of them don't even happen. Some card shows suck, and it's okay to be selective. What I try to focus on is people that I have confidence in, that I know they're doing their job, and then I'm gonna do my job of bringing stuff that people want to spend money on and money to spend on cards. But one thing that's very clear to me, the more shows that I do, the more I depend on shows as an income, it's okay to say it. Some card shows suck, and it's not a knock on the hobby. Nobody's bringing the hobby down by saying that event was planned poorly. There's this notion that if you have anything critical to say in the show scene, then you must not want everybody to make money and everybody be successful because we all want the same thing. Guys, that's not how, we ain't eating at the Golden Corral every meal, right? Like, we're gonna pick things that we like, things that work for us, things that don't, that we're gonna get hit with. That one, they'd probably do it at the Golden Corral every meal. But it's okay for there to be some stuff that works better for others. But I just get annoyed with this sentiment. So that's my rant. It's like, some shows do suck. You don't have to keep supporting it. You don't have to love it. Now, dealers and promoters, if we work with you, we're not saying it's yours. I don't have one of mine. It's just, in theory, I've noticed that this is happening more and more and more. And I'm gonna give you my response to that in two parts. First, I have a follow-up with that. If you're a show promoter, this is business, not personal. So if you're my friend and you're a show promoter, I'm also talking to you, but this is the business, not our friendship. If I'm paying you to be at your show, it is not my job to get people in the door at your show. That is your job. That's what I'm paying you for. I'm paying you to do that job. You're not paying me to do that job. That's first and foremost, right? Second one is this. So many of the shows that Jason is talking about here are shows that are relatively, they're either, not even necessarily small shows, because there's some great small shows, but a lot of these shows are being promoted by people who couldn't cut it as dealers. There are folks who couldn't cut it as dealers. They weren't selling enough of their, and they were like, I got to make money in this hobby somehow. I know, I'll sell 40 tables at 50 bucks a piece and guarantee myself $2,000 on. Weekend before my costs. That's not a good reason to promote a show. Yeah, this is one of those things that I feel like there It's just still very guarded conversations. Like people take real offense. Yeah to it But as everything else guess what GameStop's not gonna quit Catching the next wave of people getting into the hobby There's not gonna be less Pokemon sold in the next year SpongeBob was asked for more than anything else at our tables over the weekend All these things happening in the hobby are happening And if you are somebody that's running show you have choice to make I don't care I'm gonna do what I kept doing and anybody that likes what I do will keep going true Yes, and that can work like that. You may have a loyal following or Things are changing. I need to change with them And if I'm not getting the results I want what needs to change within that turn Introspective when you're not getting the results you want don't point at everybody else. Well, these people just don't I'm just No, what I think is happening is as as the space is growing as there's more shows than ever, especially in our area there is a way clearer line of delineation between the shows that people want to and there's a waitlist on and the ones that just Aren't as productive for the dealers or the collectors that are still trying to fill tables the night before the show Yeah, and that's gonna happen to everybody else. Oh my gosh. Yes. Here's where it's tough Gary and I work with so many promoters that I think I really hope people aren't taking it as like a personal attack offense It's just a rant some should not all shows are created equal. Correct period. All right, you're up. I Cannot stand it at any time in my life When people complain about things that they already knew were the case in the last week I have seen ten different content creators giving some variation of Complaining about panini products that are new newly released football products from last year's football class So the high-end stuff immaculate flawless the stuff that comes out at the end of the year That how can panini possibly do this? There's nothing to chase. There's no autos of the high-end quarterback. No crap They're all Exclusive to fanatics and guess what? You knew that a year ago You knew that two years ago when it was CJ Stroud and Bryce Young who were exclusive and now it's Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels and Bo Nix you've known why are you complaining about it? I just really want to see Jordan and a pair of Reeboks. I mean, what's good? I want to be I want to be six four and two hundred and fifteen pounds again. It's not happening Information is available. But again, it's a reminder if everybody's sourcing information on what everybody else tells them And they don't know where to go look for a checklist. They don't know where to read about product releases like That's just how information is being fed. But yeah, I would agree that you know, this information was available a while ago. Yeah Okay, I'm gonna keep complaining That's what rants are what is your card worth that's what I want to talk about just for a moment here in this rant with the evolution of PSA offering 90% Repackers paying a hundred we've shared our fair share of frustrations about how Sometimes it is a challenge to buy because people have heard 90% 95% 100% But just to be really clear about what that does and doesn't mean When a repacker buys at 90 95 100% or PSA offers on your card It is a card hear me out that someone out there wants to own and Just because that that old one that right guard honeycomb Rookie in a PSA 10 sold for a hundred dollars six weeks after the product dropped three years ago Does not mean that it will bear that value Now so people getting hung up on percentages Yes, talk percentages if it's something you can sell but a 90% of nothing is zero 90% of no buyers is 90% of nothing and I did the math on that even though I went to Bible College Still zero dollars called the identity problem 90% those strong percentages if you're going to take that argument have something worth buying Yes, and I think that's the key the idea that You guys a lot of you seem to have that Repackers will buy every single card you put in front of them at 90% plus can confirm not true Not true at all. Not true at all I had one of our best customers say hey I got a pass on these two cards and it was a gold Mahomes and a Bobby Witt auto to five so like Jason said you're Three year old d-line offensive line card that sold one time ever three years ago for $100 It ain't worth 100 bucks. It might be worth 10. It might be worth 50 It might be worth 90 But it's not a conversation of percentages when we're talking about one comp three years ago for someone that's less liquid now than they ever Were yeah, I mean that that's where it's speaking of comments speaking of comps this might be The newest like top-of-the-list pet peeve that I have in this hobby as a dealer It used to be what's your best? That was the my biggest pet peeve. It's not anymore. It's fallen to second on the list If you try to sell me something or buy something from me And the only thing you want to use is the last comp I am 100% certain that you're trying to screw me Because you only want to use the last comp if it's in your favor there could be 50 comps on a card at a hundred bucks and One card goes off at 30 bucks on the same day as the last hundred dollar sale And all you want to show me is the $30 unless Unless There's 50 comps at $100 and one went off at 500 then you want to use that one and that one only Go fly a kite. Yeah Yeah, I think people do it because it works enough enough enough dealers Want to move stuff or they get desperate or they didn't sell enough so they listen Red flag for me, and I'll just tell anybody that's ever purchased me or plans to in the future We don't lie about the condition of our cards nope talking the quality of a card down in the negotiation to me is an Immediate way for me to dig my heels in and say I don't care anymore Now I want more than the sticker Now if we're talking about a raw vintage card And it's a spread of I think this presents as a four and someone else presents as a seven now We're talking about something but ultra modern is It gonna Jim is it probably a nine is it a thick card, that's a nine Maybe that's a little bit better, but what are we doing here? I'm selling it as a raw card. You're saying it's not a gym Yeah, I'm not charging you the gym price on it. What are we doing here so that that that one drives me nuts yep Got one last rant here, and this one is very close to home for us not everything That people don't want is good whatnot stuff Say it again louder for the people in the back not everything that people don't want is good for whatnot if there's one thing I've noticed is that the language has changed from three years ago being like oh This lot has the four or five cards that you want the rest of that's great eBay stuff now Everything that is not good is whatnot stuff, and let me just tell you the truth, and it used to just be it's bulk Yeah Just because it has a three dollar comp and you're selling it at a buck does not mean it's good whatnot stuff Just because it has a $50 comp or five $50 comps Doesn't mean it's good whatnot stuff ask us how we know well the reality is your community that you have buying from you They kind of at overtime are wanting certain things And so if you have the right things that they have shown you with by voting with their dollars That they are interested in those things will do well But when you introduce 20% of the stuff that they're not interested in For us we found that you might get 60% of comps on that stuff sometimes 40% of comps Not every like you can't just say the word whatnot and add value to bulk right let's just call it What is this is bulk now for those of you that want to know? What good whatnot stuff is? For us and it's gonna be different for every seller, so that's kind of where I'm with it for us It's gonna be the right names Ultramodern low-end so like five to thirty dollar stuff or The right names late 90s early 2000s parallels refractors numbered stuff autos Slabs the right names, but you're noticing a theme here the right names are good whatnot stuff If 90% of what you have isn't it could be numbered to 49 your base prestige college uni Rookies yeah now those ironically enough you can sell them on eBay those are good to tell you eBay is a weird place and on the low-end market it can be really good But it can be really tough for you right and you can be doing the right stuff, and it slows down I'm working through that right now 30% variance on sales all my metrics are consistent I'll just leave it that you guys have heard me say it for a while But that can happen on the low-end market if you're if you get throttled a little bit by eBay for a return for something Whatever on that low-end market it kind of turns everything down if you have super interesting collectible things You can kind of list your way through that a little bit, and then eventually those metrics straighten back out But be careful not everything's whatnot not everything's eBay some things are just bulk and maybe it's better off saying hey Here's some bulk stuff I don't know if you could use it for this or that but just saying what not stuff doesn't add value to it correct Because all I hear is work. Yeah, and all I hear is I don't want any of this crap Will somebody pay me for it right right now? For those of you that are goodness whatnot stuff that we've purchased in the past that means we aren't talking about you correct Oh, you're bringing us the right one. Yeah, so yeah, that's all the rants. I have right now I mean kind of fired up. I mean I'm just nervous what hunkle Terry's gonna Do this week on the internet? You're gonna have to go fire up his webcam. He's got a floppy disk somewhere. He's keeping track of everything, but It's gonna be it's gonna be interesting I'm sure Once he's had some air time. He's only gonna want more. Yeah, that's what I was worried about man the voice Running a muck. That was my favorite running a muck was the Alright, anyhow every single week on Friday. We drop New episodes at noon if you're seeing this long-form content on YouTube just so you know We chop this up into bite-sized pieces all over socials tik-tok Instagram Facebook YouTube. I don't think there's anything else there Thursday nights we are alive 6 p.m. Eastern on whatnot running single auctions for a few hours till it dies out or we run out of stuff Is there anything else? I'm forgetting Oh Next week very excited about this next week I'm doing an interview with bonkers cards Gordy bonker all about the vintage space and in particular The business side of vintage I know there's a lot of people that cut that deal like I do where it's a little bit of everything You'd like to wade into the vintage space more like me. That's gonna be a really valuable interview Gary's enjoying a nice Vacation I'll be on vacation. It's gonna be nice No, that was weird, this has been the ball card show these sports podcast for these sports collected by now peace You