Steve Grad is Back! E404

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It's your number one source. Sports Car Nation. The hobby is the people. Sports Car Nation. What is up, everybody? Welcome to episode 404 of Sports Coordination Podcast. Let's get our, our thank yous out of the way. Want to thank our great sponsors, SGC Iron Sports Cards, scd, Sports Collectors Digest, how we hotline Upper Deck Card Ladder and a Certified Trading Card Organization association, ctca. All right, Steve Grant is back. Part two of our great conversation with probably the leading autograph authenticator in the industry or one of them. He's right there and lots of experience and you know, I'm gonna ask him like I did in the first episode last week or the first half last week. We're going to lean on his expertise and Yu-Gi-Oh knows his stuff and Yu-Gi-Oh so I like to, I like to pick brains of, of people who know their stuff. That sounded weird, but you know what I meant, so. All right, with that being said, let's get the show started. Attention Sports Card Nation viewers. What up, kids? It's your boy Scott Hansen from NFL Red Zone. Oh, we're back. Blue Ice back. The hobby never ends. And before you know it, I'm gonna be on your screen again, rocking that Octobox, knocking the bottom out of the witching hour and announcing seven hours of Red Zone football. But as you watch Red Zone, just save some time. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday to check out John in Sports Card Nation. Let's have a great season. Five, four, three, two, one, zero. I got a question. So sure someone shows you a. An autograph card that's slabbed by whatever company. It doesn't even matter. They're there and you're. Look, it's Certified by that company, and you're looking at. Somehow they showed it to you and you know, like, hey, this is not. I know what it says on the flip, but I have bad. You know, I got to be the bearer of bad news, right? This is not. In my honest opinion and expert opinion, I don't believe this is a rare player, a autograph. How do you. How do you handle that when, like, it's already. You know what I mean? It's already, like, in the population reports. It's already slabbed. I'm sure they believe you. I mean, most of the time, right? Like, what. What do you recommend they do in a case like that? Or what. Or what can you do even potentially? I mean, I've. I've done some stuff on online. You know, I've gone on Twitter and talked about it. I've definitely commented on it. When I see something that's wrong, I. I want people to know, you know, and there are mistakes by. Listen, I'll go back to this one remark, John, is that, like, there's no perfection in authentication. There's. There. It doesn't exist. And we're human. We're human. There you go. You don't want to be. You don't want to be somebody that's perfect. I mean, it's nice to be perfect and get it all right all the time. But mistakes are going to happen. Things will get through. I always tell people that. I always reference two ball players who, who were great at their position. Ozzy Smith, Brooks Robinson. I mean, essentially, those guys never made errors. I mean, but they did, and it happened. But, you know, you got the human vacuum cleaner there. You've got the wizard at shortstop. And those guys were really good at what they did. And, you know, they were great defenders. And at the same time, as an autograph authenticator, I feel that I'm the same way. You know, I feel I'm very good at this job, got into a great position, but I'm not infallible. I could make mistakes, and we mess things up. And that goes for what you were saying about the companies, too. So you've got, you know, psa, you've got jsa, you've got Beckett. Those are the big three that do holder stuff. And there's stuff that I do see that I kind of disagree with that. I've. I'm. I'm not. I don't hold back anymore. I did when I was at Beckett and then PSA wouldn't want me talking about any of that one-of-one And you know, I've been gone from PSA for 10 years. Do they make mistakes, too? Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh And, and everybody does. They're human and it does happen. But sometimes I do go point them out and let them know, but at the end of the day, I don't think they do much about. Pretty sure they're just going to keep going on as business as usual. And at the same time, John, I'm not trying to destroy someone else's livelihood, but I think it's important to educate people on, hey, maybe you don't want to spend a quarter million on this card because it's not what it really is. And I could point it a lot. I, you know, I did a video, I want to say I'm a YouTube channel back in May and listen, I didn't have to get involved in this, but I got dragged into it on, on X on Twitter and it was about the perfect pair. About the shoe collector in California who is, has this incredible shoe collection, you know, tens of millions of dollars, rare stuff, great stuff, but he's also got autograph stuff. And he to have one of the shoes Jordan wore when he made the shot against Utah in the last finals he played in, but one of those shoes. So Jordan had given one to his pr The PR guy, the Bulls. And he had all six shoes, one shoe each from every last final game Jordan gave to him. Those sold in Sotheby's for crazy number 6 million or what. And he claims to have another shoe that was worn by Jordan that night, but the autographs were all, they're all garbage. And he has another shoe from a game that was like two games before that. Same thing, all bad. But I didn't talk to the guy. I just did a video based on what I saw. And you know, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to look at the picture of it. And I know it's no, no good. And you know, he's still standing behind it, obviously, and he's not happy the video is out there. But I told him, I said, at the end of the day, here's what you should do. Come to the national and go visit. You've got three big companies there. Go submit it to every single one and see what they say. Then take that and submit it for photo match and see what happens. Because I can tell you you're going to be disappointed because nothing's going to match up. You're going to end up, you know, you end up. If you have the money, which he's very boisterous about having money, then just go spend it. You're going to lose it. But at the same time, you'll know the truth. Yu-Gi-Oh I wonder sometimes, and I don't want to speak for this individual. I don't know, you know, sometimes I wonder if maybe internally they sort of have their own doubts and they just don't want to know, you know? You know what I mean? As crazy, as crazy as that might sound, they're like, well, if I don't try to find out, then I one-of-one know something bad. You know what I mean? It's like someone maybe being ill, and they're like, I'm not going to the physician. Or did I just keep going as long as, you know, for as long as I can. It's right. He's been on this hit streak with those shoes forever because he's been talking about them for 10, 12 years. I mean, at this point in time, he's, you know, he's on that hill. He's not getting off. He's. He's there, he's on top. And he's like, no, they're good. I feel they're good. But at the end of the day, I. I've seen videos. Many. There's tons of videos on the shoes, and they're just complete garbage. And it would be hard for anybody to deny it. When you look, when you start matching exemplars. And that's the important thing to do, too, is like, I'm going to demonstrate to you why these are no good. I'll show you. And I'm going to show you the reasons why they're so. And, And I like doing that. And I do like to point. Yu-Gi-Oh And you're not just telling someone, hey, that's. That's bad or that's not authentic. You're explaining how you came to that conclusion. It's exactly, you know, you. You did the math and you're showing them how you got to that. To that answer, not just giving them, you know, the answer, which, like. But like you said, maybe some. Some people don't. Don't want to hear the answer. Don't. What was the great line? The answer maybe don't want to hear it. What was the great line in Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men. You can't handle. You can't handle the truth. And I don't think people. And listen, I've spent all these years in this business And a lot of people still can't handle the truth. We just had recently someone used our autograph review@gradcollection.com and he put in like I think eight or 12 items. And they were all terrible. They were awful. And you know, they were, they were Jordan and Mantle and all the big names are all terrible. He emails us saying I want a complete refund. My stuff was 100% genuine. And I was like, okay, whatever you say. No problem. This stuff wasn't. It was really bad. But he can't handle the truth. So that's. There's a lot of those in our business. Yu-Gi-Oh it's tough. And obviously sometimes you get caught in the middle. Hello, it is Ryan. And I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on jumbaccasino.com I looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing? They were also playing Jumba Casino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumba Casino is home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere. So sign up now@chumbacasino.com to claim your free welcome bonus. That's chumbacasino.com and live the Chumba life. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary VGW Group void We're prohibited by law 21/ terms and conditions apply. Grainger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory cost climb too little production slows. Grainger's $2 billion in on hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it. So you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Of that is there an athlete or celebrity that even has an authenticator like that really puts you through the task. Like this is going to be like the top. I guess I'm asking you in a long winded way is like which, which person gives you even, even with your expertise. Like you really have to like work to, to make sure you know one side or the other, like it's real or it's not but gives you the most trouble getting to that. Well not, not to lump them all together but I think that the, the modern sharpie stuff is tough. You know, you have to think about this way. If you go back to let's just say even, you know, let's go back to the 30s, you had fountain pens, you had pencil, but mostly fountain pens. And then late 40s, early 50s, you start moving your way into ballpoint pens and then roller writers and markers and laundry markers and all this stuff. The more the markers have got advanced, I think the tougher it is. You see less pen strokes, you see less overlapping, and you've seen it. I don't have to tell you, you know, these guys scribble, you know, I mean, most modern athletes, musicians, celebrities, they just scribble. So it's really hard, you know, when you start looking and saying someone says, oh, this is Hugh Jackman's autograph. And it's literally like a loop in a line. You know, Al Pacino, when he was rushing, Al Pacino would give you a check mark or a circle. Like, it's hard to say, Yu-Gi-Oh that's their autograph conclusively. So I think a lot of that stuff does give people issues from an authentication standpoint. A lot of times my, my personal thing is you just patch auto away because it's almost impossible to support it. You know what I mean? You can't, you can't really support scribble. It's very difficult. Now I know how certain people sign, but they've always signed that way and I could accept that. Like Jonah Hill from when he was, you know, first in Hollywood till now, it's just a complete scribble thing and he's always done it. But it's hard to like justify some of the scribble I see. You know, like, you'd look at like, Hugh Jackman is a great example. Again, he did a signing, those were all nice. Then you look at an in person, Hugh Jackman, you're like, huh, it's like nothing. So you just, I think, you know, when you start looking those autographs, those could be trouble. And listen, there's, I could put a million people in that group. They're all scribblers, so they're tough to authenticate. Could you, listening to you explain that? And I fully get it. Can you almost say like the scribble autos, I almost can authenticate because, like, how do you do it? Like, you know, I've, I've got an autograph. I remember getting autographs, Steve, when I was a kid at a baseball game and you know, there's a line of us kids and they're just grabbing the card quick and just, you know, it's real quick. It's like you said, it's different than a setting where they're not Rushed or they're not trying to get out of there. And I've gotten cards autographed by players and then I see another autoimm that's a lot nicer and I'm like, it's not, not necessarily get Certified, but I'm like, if I was to, I wouldn't pass this. And I know it's real because I, I was there and, and handed to him and he handed it back. But because of the, the rushing or the, you know, not, not the attention to detail that they might do at another. A real signing at a show where they're getting paid and they're at the table. Both autographs are real, but one is obviously nicer looking, easier to obviously authenticate and almost like the scribble ones you can. And then. Oh, and on top of that, and I'm sure you've seen this, we're seeing a lot of the newer players, these younger players that cursive is really not taught in school, unfortunately. And they just put like their init. Literally they print initials like mom John Newman. If I was younger I might just put jn. And you see a lot of those on these Certified autos that are coming out of packs that way. And like I can, I can replicate that. I'm not even good at, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be good at that. But I can, I can even do that much. You almost can't certify other than unless they were in front of you and you say I. That is their autograph because I witnessed them signing it. I'm trying, I'm trying to think like Caleb Williams who plays for I'm Bears fan. But his autograph is pretty, pretty awful. It's cw Maybe a C sometimes and that's it. And you, you talked about the initials. I think the kid who is. That was the first round pick in the NBA. I saw that like the first auto he signed. It was, it was horrible. And he's taken his time and that's what he's signing. Or the, the Raiders quarterback that just, they just drafted. Same thing. I just saw some of his stuff and I'm like, this is, this is. Yu-Gi-Oh Mendoza. Yu-Gi-Oh And Ash and Genti. Same thing. Like his autograph. The first signing he did signed really tiny on stuff. He'd signed, you know, these big full size helmets and he just signed really tiny. And it's a terrible signature. one-of-one it's. That stuff is really tough to go near and authenticate because who knows, I mean did the athletes sign it? Did they send Them. The cards to do it, but their autographs are just nothing. You've seen them. I know you have. I've seen them online where someone will illustrate someone's signature. Like, what is this? It looks like a check mark or maybe you just drew a little line or a squiggle. The soccer player signed, terrible. You know, back. If I go back to, like, the 80s, collecting in person, the guys who usually had the worst autographs were hockey. They were all scribble. Then it. You know, then baseball was better. Usually in football. Now they're just all brutal. I've Zenith. The. Yu-Gi-Oh Now it's terrible. It's all. It's all. To me, they're rushing. Like, you even see some of the athletes post on their social media, and they got the cards all laid out in front of them, and they're just. They sometimes don't even comment, like, gotta get through this asap, or quick. And so they're. You know, they're. They're rushing through them. I almost think with the scribble or the initial autos, the only way those really can be Certified is there's a witness, like, there. Exactly. It just says, listen, I was there. It wasn't. Listen, it one-of-one a pretty auto, but it is his or her auto. And I was. Well, I had done. Yu-Gi-Oh and that's a great point you made, because I had done Ben Affleck's first signing, and Ben Affleck. Yu-Gi-Oh Came in and he said, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do my nice autograph, not my street scribble. And before you knew it, during that signing, two or three hours, he had signed. No, he signed 25 different ways. So whatever he signed at the beginning was nothing. What he signed at the end, they were all nice in a way, but you had to have them witnessed because people would be like, hold on a minute, wait. He's got 20 different signatures in this signing. I went and did a video for the client, and I put on Instagram because they wanted people to know, like, hey, we were there. Beckett was there witnessing it. But I will tell you, he was all over the board. And guys do that at signing Sims. It's very strange. Just settle down and just sign one way if you. Yu-Gi-Oh it makes. Like you said, makes your life difficult. And I think at some point, with certain. Especially, like, the. Just the initial ones where anyone can do that potentially. I almost think those have to be in front of someone that can just verify, like, listen, it's not the. It's not. It's not a pretty signature, but it's his or hers. I was here so you know, that sort of thing. But absolutely, Yu-Gi-Oh I get it. Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. For nearly 50 years, sports collectors Digest has been the voice of the hobby, bringing you comprehensive coverage of the sports collectible industry. From industry news, auction results, market analysis and in depth stories about collectors and their collections, Sports Collector's Digest has everything you need to know about the hobby. SCD is also your leading source for listings of sports collectible dealers, card shops, card shows and the latest from the industry's top companies. To check out all the latest news or to subscribe to the hobby's Oldest magazine, visit sportscollectorsdigest.com or call 1-800-829-5561. Sports Card nation has returned. You know, if you collect vintage autograph stuff, you know, we, we those of us that, that know about it, right? The clubby signature, the secretarials, how good were those folks at replicating the athlete signature that they were, they were doing and how, in other words, how, how tricky is it for you to spot or not? Not really. I'd say that the, you know, the, obviously the, you always go to the Yankees first and you know, they had guys signing not really Ruth that much, very rarely and Garrig occasionally But you know, DiMaggio and Mantle clubhouse guy, especially throughout Mantle's whole career after triple Crown, you know, by 56 or so, it was mostly just clubhouse stuff coming out. He occasionally signed his mail when he was early on, just ever so, you know, maybe a hit or miss here because you know, I see government postcards so that tells me someone sent to him somewhere. But it could have been on the road, it could have been sent to a ballpark, you know, that he was visiting or if he's in Washington or Chicago. But when you start seeing GPCs, you know, somebody's probably signing our mail at some point. Mantle's a good one but the, the clubhouse guys are always out there. They've been around forever. And I think the Finest story I could tell you or about clubhouse signatures is in the late 60s, early, early to mid-70s, the Tigers hired did something really unique because the Tigers had, you know, pretty decent teams back there and some decent names back in the late 60s, 70s, but they hired X, they current felons that were forgers and they would sign the baseballs for the, for the team. And I see those all the time. And it's the whole team all in different inks. So one guy or two guys would work on two different players and they would sign them on the balls. But all the team balls that were given away back then usually were no good. Like, 68 tigers were done by guys sitting in a prison. They weren't done by the players. I mean, there's real ones, but there's ones that were just literally signed by all. They're all cons signing the team balls. So I don't know if a lot of people know that, but, you know, in. In that, the. The clubhouse thing is, is stayed steady. Now. Do I see it a lot currently? No, because we, you know, quite truthfully, you don't see a lot of team balls anymore. It's pretty rare, and it doesn't happen. And I'd say that that fad is almost gone now amongst teams. Like, maybe there's a handful here or there, but they don't really do a lot of team balls anymore. And Even back in the 90s, early 2000s, you saw clubhouse stuff come out. You know, Barry Bonds almost always, you know, with the Giants or if it was Pirates or other, you know, he would have somebody sign for. So that stuff did happen. It's interesting to see how that evolution has gone on. We know that people sign for celebrities all the time. People sign for sports players all the time. If you're mailing something, you have to know there's a good chance they might not actually sign it. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, if you're. If you're sending to Dan Castle and Etta, who does a voice of Homer Simpson, you're going to get it back signed. But if you're sending to Aaron Judge, he's probably never going to see your letter or see anything you had to do with it. Yu-Gi-Oh it's a good point. Like, you know, even at home, Right. And maybe a wife signed it or they have a personal assistant. That's. That's in their repertoire. Heck, like you said, the Tigers hired convicts to be Mickey Lowlich and friends. You know, they did it. You know, don't. You know, don't forget you mentioned that that was very prevalent with hall of Famers, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh you. You send a red favor in the mail. Red favor's wife would you send an Earl Combs in the mail? Earl Combs wife would sign it and on and on. And it kind of went like that with a lot of those type of players because they were besieged by mail at times, and they just Goldin do it all. I mean, Jimmy Foxx's brother Would sign for him. Roger Hornsby had a girlfriend back in the mid-50s that would sign all of his mail. So that stuff happens and it's been happening for a long time, you know, because they just can't handle it or don't want to do it all. And I've seen it happen throughout the years. I'm just about everybody. Yu-Gi-Oh we're coming down the home stretch, Steve. Talk about you're not new, obviously the industry, but you, you're on your own now. Kind of talk about, you know, what you provide, what you do. Obviously we already talked to you doing like educational stuff, your videos in YouTube, but even on the professional level, like the stuff that you offer and now being your own guy. Right. Like you said, you have your two main operations with your wife. So, you know, kinda. I don't one-of-one I rambled on there, but who better to, to explain that than, than yourself? Well, you did a good job. So you did it. You missed some details, you know, four years ago, started a grant collection with my wife just to really sell the inventory, but there's so much of it that's ongoing. And then in February, when parted ways with Beckett, which I helped found Beckett Authentication 2016 with Brian Sobrero, and I kind of left that behind. I also stayed on board with Beckett in a different capacity to consult and train authenticators, which that is coming to an end soon too. So by the time this here is, that'll be over. So basically we said, well, we got to do some stuff here. It's not like I'm going to retire off of, you know, Paul Canerko autographs. It's not going to happen. So we have to, to be realistic about this. And we came up with a division of Grad collection we just call grad Authentication. We'd like to keep the same branding and everything, but it's. If you go to gradcollection.com you could go to our autograph review right on there and we do a virtual letter, we do appraisals, we do grading, we do one on one sessions. With me, if you want to buy that. If someone wants to go on to ebay with me for an hour, I could help them find real stuff or help them find the stuff they want, or I go through people's collections. The autograph review is great because listen, you know this much and you're very well versed in this business. It's not like any company has good turnaround time. That's. It's really bad. And we thought we'd jump into this and give people a different option of doing a digital letter. And for us at least, you know, and me too, people say, how do you do that? Well, you know, I've been buying autographs forever online. We think of the early days even. I mean, early days of ebay. If you remember, sometimes there was no photos back in like 98, 99 people. You didn't have to put a photo. I remember eBay before PayPal and. And oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh You used to have to mail a check or money order. Yu-Gi-Oh And if you mail the check, you'd have to wait till your check cleared before they ship. That's why. Exactly. Go to the bank and get a money order if you wanted your stuff faster. Right. This is. I remember those days. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I was. I was on that platform sewing. So now, you know, people say, well, I can't get my stuff back fast enough. You know, how do I send all this frame stuff? How do I send these hockey sticks, these baseball bats? It. So now we offer a service, you know, where I could, you know, view the items and we'll do a digital letter. Now some cases. And it's happens. It happens all the time with the autograph review is that the photo looks like a preprint or something. Looks like a copy. And I just do. Unable to render opinion because I'm not going to put my leg, you know, so to speak, in that type of water. So we just. I'm very careful about it. And people have always asked, they keep asking us, well, are you going to do little certs, you know, like stickers? And the answer to that is no. I'm not going to say no for certain. Okay. You know, I'm not pulling a Michael Jordan here. But at the same time, I'm saying it's just not in the cards because the one thing that requires is manpower and me being gone and traveling. This time I'm deciding to do it like I want to do it with my wife. Where we want to spend our time, where we want to be. If we want to get in the RV and go up to Montana, we could do that. If we want to get on a plane and go to London, I could still do everything I do. I could do it right on computer or my phone, and it's no problem. So for us, at least it made. It's going to make our lives easier and make it easier to do for me because I have been doing the grind in this business forever. And it's. It's not great, you know, being on the Road and planes and car rentals and hotels and this is canceled and you got to go here and bad weather, that's over. So, you know, it's just easy. If you Visit us@gradcollection.com, you could ask us questions there. We try to get back to everybody in 24 hours. The autograph review has a 24 hour turnaround. In a lot of cases, it's a lot quicker. And we also have an upgrade if you want to do it in two hours or less, which, listen, I do it most of the time, but if someone hits me up at three in the morning, it's not like I'm, you know, oh, here on my phone at 3 in the morning, I'm not doing that. So. But you know, we, we encourage people to do it that way. And I think it's, it's just an alternative, especially for people in Europe, for people in Asia, for people in New Zealand who collect. By the way, there's huge markets out there. You know, I used to go do shows all the time in England. There's huge collectors in France and Germany. And I want them to know, like, listen, you have an alternative instead of, you know, if you wanted to send in 10 photos to any of the big companies and you lived in Germany between shipping VAT back and forth, by the way, declared values, you know, turnaround times, you might wait a year to get your stuff back and pay an arm and a leg. So if you were paying $25 just for COAS or stickers on your items and you're from Germany, you might actually have paying 40 double. 40 bucks, 50 bucks a piece just to get those Certified. Is that really worth it? We offer an alternative for people. It's worked very well so far today. You know, while this airs, I mean, by the time this airs, we'll, we'll, we'll have it out here for two months and we keep chugging along, so it's, it's really cool to do it. And obviously the education stuff on YouTube, which I'm going to continue doing that as long as I can and doing this, you know, and I know sometimes I look at my views on them, I'm like, well, that's not great. But you know, we do the Evolution series where I do it once a month or twice a month. I come out with a two signers a month and you know, Babe Ruth, whether it's Babe Ruth or any player or any celebrity, I try to just figure out someone and I enjoy doing that because I break down like Babe Ruth. I can go from 1915 up until a week before he died in 1948. So I could run the gamut. And I could do it with Luke Garrig, and I could do it with. And I'm going to do Garrett, you know, Clemente. There's a great Clemente one out there, too. And I explained what to look for in his autograph. He has got to tell every time he signs his name. And also what to look for with the, the clubhouse and secretarial signatures and then the forgeries, which are prevalent, as, you know, I don't have to tell you. Yu-Gi-Oh And that's. That's great that you offer that. And no matter what continent you're on, Right. You can take advantage. Every year we read, right, the. The rates are going up, whether it be the United States Postal Service or ups, like, it's not going down. So it just heck a stamp. Now. I remember when stamps, you'd be like a quarter. And now they're like, you know, they're approaching, what, 70? So times are changing. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So it's nice that, that, that, you know, and they're getting probably arguably the best person in the business. I appreciate that. Thank you. Expert opinion on top of that. Right. Any. Anyone can say they're this or that or I. We provide this. Right. But you sort of have that pedigree as far as, like, enjoying time with family. Right. You've paid your due, Steve. Right. You've done this a long time. Like you said, it is a grind, and you've done it for a while. And listen, it's all right to enjoy life and travel and it is. You put in, you put in the work. Right. It's not like you're just lazy. For 30, 40 years, you, you worked and now it's time for. And you're still doing it. It's not like you're right off in the sunset. No. But you also, you know, spend a little time on yourself and with family, and that's always important. That's a good thing, right? That's important because it keeps you going and you can't, you know, you can't do the grind all the time. I mean, Jim Spence is basically retired. He still is an authenticator. And I talked to Jim just recently and we just caught up. And, you know, because I came up through this with Jim and, you know, he's enjoying his life a lot more. He doesn't travel and he does stuff at the office, and he's still very active in the autograph stuff and looking at stuff being part of it. And I'm. I'm active in it too, but at the same time, I'm choosing how to do it. And I don't, you know, I've enjoyed working for these companies. I worked for Collector's universe for almost 15 years. I worked for Beckett for almost 10 years. I had some really good relationships and friends. There was some good times and bad times, but at the end of the day, I don't have to do that anymore. I could work for myself and kind of navigate those waters. And, you know, my wife and I have it, you know, kind of figured out how we want to do it. We don't have to let someone else decide for us. You know, you're, you know, I don't have to go to Dallas anymore and I don't have to go to this show and I don't, you know, have to sit in a warehouse till three in the morning because I don't have to. And it's. It's my decision, so I'm good with it. You're your CEO and you're the boss. You set the schedule. Yes, sir. That's a. That's a good thing. Well, I know you're busy. That goes without saying. We. We appreciate you making some time. Pulsar We're recording this before the national full disclosure. So I hope to see you here in. In a week. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh I want to make sure. Yu-Gi-Oh we will. So that is full disclosure. But Yu-Gi-Oh you come by and see me and please, main. Main show Fleer You know, probably same booth next year, but 509, 511. And please come by and say hi to my wife and I. We'd love to see you. Yu-Gi-Oh I appreciate it. Thanks, Steve. Pulsar Talk to you soon, man. Drew McIntyre here from WWE. Wielding the Claymore can be a life of chaos when I'm not dominating in the ring. Chumba Casino is how this warrior takes a Yu-Gi-Oh break. With hundreds of online social games and new weekly releases, there's always something fresh to try and those daily boosts next level. Even my free time feels like Valhalla. So when life feels like a battle, kick up your feet, have some fun and let's Chumba. No PURCHASE NECESSARY VGW Group VOID where prohibited by law. 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