The Future Of SGC Grading- My Reaction To My Conversation With Company Executives!!

Sports talk, car talk, poppy. All day, wax packs, big polls and comms. We debate. So turn in and let the intro play. You're now rocking with the midlife car chase, the midlife card chase with the David Chase. How are you, buddy? I'm good. How are you doing? Gregory Miller. I mean, we just got to hang out. We were, you know, going to dinner, we were having drinks. We were going to the national. What a good time now. Exhausting, because I didn't hardly sleep the whole time, but it was fun. My voice is maybe at 90% now. It was pretty bad at one point, though. How are you doing? I'm doing great. My voice sounds wonderful, like sweet nothings. So I got great sleep. And I mean, not enough just because we were up late and I was getting up early to try to get to the national right on time. You and I, we're the timely ones of our group of friends. All of our friends, they always tell us they're going to meet us at a certain time, and Greg and I are always the only ones that are there. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess we're gonna go without them time after time. Hey, tomorrow morning, guys want to meet at 8:50. 8:50 would come and go, and off we went without them. But hey, when you're a surfer and a Canadian, what do you expect, right? That's true. We're the only timely ones of our friends. So, you know what? If you want to keep up with us, you better be on time. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Well, Yu-Gi-Oh A lot. A lot to talk about with the national. A lot of interesting conversations. I recorded with Junk Wax Mike the other day and asked him for some takeaways. He didn't really have anything. That was a massive takeaway. We had the conversation about opening the gates early and all that kind of stuff. You know, if you were to kind of summarize after going to the epicenter of the card hobby for, you know, five straight days or whatever in Chicago, the industry is like, this is the pinpoint of everything that's happening. Did you have anything that was surprising or anything that you're like that. That you were like, Yu-Gi-Oh I didn't quite realize that. No, I mean, it really? Really? Joshua Adams, really? Joshua Adams, nothing. You know, the Nationals, what you think it should be, but it's also something that you have to take in, and you have to know what you're getting, what you're dealing with. It is hard to. To navigate. And the first time you go is always going to be the most difficult time because you don't really know where anything is and it can get a little bit fr. The second time you go, you're going to know it way better. So anybody that went one time and they were like, Yu-Gi-Oh this was overwhelming and crazy, don't worry, the second time you do this, it's going to be way, way easier because you know the little tricks, you know, to get your badge early, you know which entrance to go into, you know what dealer booths, maybe to go see first. And maybe one of the biggest things that I feel like with some of my friends that are not the most decisive, Joe Perot, you, you can also get frustrated because if you don't have a card that you, that if you find a card you love, you need to pull the trigger right away and, or it can, it can be sold or that dealer can get enough responses from that card that they jack up the price, which happened to one of our buddies that they jacked up the price like $5,000 between one day and the next because they realize that they underpriced it. So you just have to be ready. And I know it's frustrating to sometimes use a lot of your budget early on, but that's when you sometimes find the best deals. Because if you find a card that you love and it looks nice, other people will feel the same way. There's no doubt that the hunting in the hobby and finding the right card at the right price, price, especially if it's a rare card, is definitely part of it. And when you walk into a place like the national where there are genuinely like five rooms essentially of dealers and stuff, it's hard to find exactly what you want. And I do want to do a quick shout out to our friends at Auction Wire. Again, if you're home and you're looking for exactly what you want, the easiest way to do that is with Auction Wire because they search all the auction houses for you, a lot of dealer inventory for you. And there were a lot of cards at the national that I looked. I said I think I need to add that card to my collection. And I didn't walk away with one. And I come home and I've got some new saved searches on Auction Wire. So Again, promo code SCC gets you 60 free day trial of Auction Wire. It was good. Run into Mark Mandela and obviously Leighton Sheldon at their booth. It was the just collect slash Auction wire booth. So thanks to them, again, check out auction wire for 60 free days of the One Stop Shop to find the card you're looking for online. Now with that said, David, there was A conversation. And I agree with everything you just said about the strategy and all of that, but even that, I've been to multiple huge shows, I've been to multiple Nationals, and I didn't even go to every single booth. I. I was at the show for three full days. I didn't go Sunday because I was flying home. I didn't go Friday because I was at the Yankees Cubs game, but I spent three full days in the show, and I. I would say I hit 85% of the tables. I just. You can't get through it all. And it's. It's crazy to think that that's the reality of it, but it is overwhelming. It's drinking out of a fire hose. It's so much coming at you so fast. And I had a conversation with Mike, like I mentioned on our Tuesday episode of Surface Issues, and there was one big thing that happened at the show that I have not talked about, and I was saving it for us. So. Junk wax, Mike. Sorry, buddy, but I didn't bring it up there. Well, you know, you don't want to put it out on the JV show. This is the varsity show. You wanted to put it on, obviously. But wait, before you get to that. Yu-Gi-Oh Why is it that you didn't see all the tables? Do you think it's because, like, were you signing autographs and taking pictures of the fans? Was it because you got distracted? I mean, because it took me a couple of days, but I also. I. I'm. I'm focused when I'm going through it. Was it because you were just kind of doing it leisurely? Why didn't you get through it all? That's a good question. Part of it is I have a lot of friends, and a lot of the times I'd get a text and say, where are you? I want you to take a look at this card with me. So I'd be in the middle of my. Kind of moving through the room, trying to stay organized, and then all of a sudden, bang, I'm up from there. I go upstairs to look at the card with a friend. Well, I'm already upstairs. Let's look at some tables here. You get a text from my dad that says, hey, I'm looking at this card. And then you go down there, and then somebody goes, hey, you want to go grab some food? And then you. So it's just when. When you're to your own devices and you could do whatever you want, you know, if. If I'm home by myself, I get a lot more chores done than if my family's home, because there's always something else that's popping up. So I think that's a lot of it. But the other part of it is, it's overwhelming. And there are times you start to go. Going to go through the upstairs, and then you go through a row and you're like, this is too congested. I'll come back later. And then you don't go back later, you know, so there's a lot of moving parts and a lot going into it. So a little bit of everything, but that's the main thing. But it wasn't really shaking hands and kissing babies. It was more of the. It was more of the just. You're so many squirrels, so many shiny objects. You're going in different directions at the same time. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I get it. And you work shaking hands and kissing babies often, so don't try to downplay it. Everyone wants a little piece of midlife Greg. I mean, come on. He's the number one vintage YouTuber on the planet. I mean, come on, now. But when you're a nicer person than me, because on day one, when people are like, will you come and see this? I'm like, today's a tough day for me to do that. But if I come down there, I will come and take a look at your card. But especially on day one, I was really running around. I think that you and I maybe met up a couple of times, though, just, you know, if it's like something that's, like, this is my grail card. Can you please come and take a look at it? Of course I'm going to do that. But I think you were doing that for 17 different people, which made it a little bit harder for you. You know, only a couple of friends. Well, and then the other piece of it, you know, it's interesting because, you know, I get these messages that say, like, you know, guess what? I didn't go to the national, and I bought two cards today from home, you know, and I saved all this money. I understand that. And. And. But I. The national is not about improving your collection. That's not. It's about improving your hobby experience. It's about meeting new people. It's about spending time with people you care about. It's a place that we can all congregate together. It's like Burning man for, you know, or Sturgis for a motorcyclist. It's. It's the place that you all go and you spend time together, and then one of the things that happens is you, you start having conversations with experts in these areas. Like I spent 45 minutes learning about Z nut cards from like the, the best Z nut collection, at least in the room. And then I go over to a non sport dealer and I spend 45 minutes learning about non sport cards from a non sport dealer. And, and, and it's to me the acquisition of cards is certainly part of it. It's certainly one of the goals. But that's not the reason to go to the National. If you're about using your hobby dollars to the Velocity to improve your collection. The best going to the national is not really the best way to do that. The best way to do that is to sit at home by yourself on a couch and, and have your auction wire set after you've used promo code sec and you are waiting for the card to pop up and then you get in, you buy it before anybody else. But the national is an experience. It is an experience. But I disagree with you on some part of this because I last year, I last year knew nobody. I was by myself. I literally knew nobody. I only spoke to like dealers that I was going through it. I saw the great Greg Miller there, but he just had an aura around him and I was too nervous to go up to such a superstar like him. But you know, and I loved it. But I'm somebody who like, I love cards so much that this is the greatest show of all time. And you are going to finally see a lot of cards that you do not see in person. And a lot of times you don't see them online either because a lot of these dealers are old school dealers that don't have the technology to even have an iPhone. Right. They still have flip phones. So they are definitely not putting them online also. So you can find a lot of times these like cards that you're not really looking for. And I do think are the prices a little high? Yes. But you're also sometimes paying for buyer's premium and taxes and things like that. So you can kind of offset some of those things. But you know, so I do think that if you just want the biggest, baddest card show in the world, the national is it. And especially for vintage, I think that you can find a lot of stuff that's there that you cannot just find easily online. I don't disagree with any of that. I mean if I, if I made it seem like otherwise then that's not what I was intending to communicate. My, my goal was to me one of the pieces of the full picture that is the. Some of the best stuff is the learning, and it's the conversations and it's the hanging out with people that I care about and the making new friends. I definitely made new friends at the show. I definitely spent time with people I care about. I definitely learned a lot about different cards, and I definitely had some interesting conversations, which is a perfect segue to where we're going now. So my main topic that I want to talk, Segway, that's my segue. Your segue? I thought I segued it perfectly. I mean, your segue. Yu-Gi-Oh You were driving down the highway and I. I created an off ramp and I took it and you were along for the ride and then said, did you see how he did that? Where are we going, Greg? Yu-Gi-Oh exactly. So, David Chase. Yes. I had two really interesting encounters. The first one, I was walking down the Shoeless Joe's, and this would have been Thursday night YouTube get together, walking down there, and lo and behold, who is walking the opposite direction. The one, the only rein hog from Collector's Universe. Now, Ryan Hogue, if you're not familiar, he's the guy who. Oh, I'm gonna. I'll play a very part of a brief clip just so you could see who he is. So here we go. Doesn't mean it's necessarily going to get the same grade because it's. Again, it's a grader's opinion and there's ranges. So that's Ryan Hogue. He's the head of grading for all of Collector's Universe. So he's the head of grading for psa, the head of grading for bgs. He's head of grading for sgc. And I've always found him to be a very likable person and a very good dude. I don't always agree with everything he says. I don't always like everything he says, but I've always thought he was a good guy. And the other thing about him that I have a great appreciation for is I've reached out to him via Instagram multiple times, and he's always been very courteous and responded and been thoughtful in his responses, and I appreciate him very much. He's the kind of guy I think I could have dinner with at Gibson's and have a great time and. But we've never spoken. And I saw him at the national last year and I didn't, you know, I didn't want to bug him. I'm sure he had other people that wanted to talk to him and I'm more interested in the Ryan Hogue conversation personally than the Nat Turner conversation, because Nat, at times, he. I don't know. I want to talk to Ryan. I have questions for Ryan. I have curiosities for Ryan. Some of the things he said I want clarification on. So he's walking down the sidewalk towards us, and we're walking towards Shoeless Joe's. It's me, my dad, and Mike Petty. And I'm like, I gotta say. I gotta say something. I gotta introduce myself. And so I did, and he was very kind. And we probably spoke for four or five minutes briefly. I invited him on my channel. I explained who I was, introduced myself, that I had some questions, I had some concerns, and that I think that the vintage community would love to hear from him on some of these topics. And he said, you got it. I'll. Come on. He's like, let's do it in September. He said, send me a message. We'll set something up. I've already sent him a message on Instagram. He was again, very communicative with me, a very good guy. And he again agreed. Yep, we'll do it. Let's do it in September. I think I might have an idea as to why he wants to wait till September, quite frankly. And then. So that was really cool. So those are sorts of things that happen at the National. Now, are you ready for. I need to ask you some questions about this one. One quick second, because I want to. I want to finish the rest of it, that second conversation briefly, at least introduce that topic, and then you can fire at me as much as you want. But I want to ask you about that first. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Sorry to derail you. Did he know who you were when you introduced yourself? He's a good guy. And so he said. I said, Yu-Gi-Oh my name is Greg Miller. My channel is Midlife Sports Cards. And he goes, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh I've seen Midlife Sports Cards. I've watched. I've watched some of your. I've watched several of your videos. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh That's what he said. Now, is that true? I don't know. Was he just being nice? You know, it's like, you know, sometimes you'll meet someone. Like, I. I was just a coffee with my mom this morning, and these people came up, and then they said, oh, hey, you know, hey, good to see you again. I was like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh good to see you again, too. I'd never seen him before, so it could have been one of those. Were those Finest? At Starbucks? My Mom's friends. Oh, I thought you're just getting recognized at Starbucks now. Yu-Gi-Oh so he said that, he said that he knew who I was, but he's a nice guy, so he would say that probably if he didn't. And when you responded to him just recently after you met him on Instagram, he responded to you recently, right after the meeting. Correct. Last night. So we're recording this on August 5th and August 4th. I didn't want it like ping him like 20 minutes later. So I waited until he was home from the National. So on Tuesday evening I, I sent him a DM and a long dm, thanking him for his time, reminding him of the conversation. He was very kind back again and he said, yep, absolutely, in September we'll get something on the calendar. We'll do it. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh You treated it just like a first date where you didn't want to seem desperate even though you were excited to get the second date. I like how you gave that. Well, he's a, he's a. I like to have conversations about cards and I like to be able to ask people questions that can help shed light on a current situation. So Yu-Gi-Oh I was very excited to have the opportunity to talk to him. But at the same time, like, I, I'm sure he has people approach him all the time. Like, I don't want him to think I'm a crazy person, even though some people might think I'm a crazy person. I want him to know I'm like a down to earth person. I'm a, A fair person. I'm just a curious person. And I one-of-one I one-of-one I one-of-one just talk to him about, about Collector's Universe, but specifically, quite frankly, SGC and what's going on with SGC and what's the future of sgc? Is it still a boutique? Will it always be a boutique? You know, is the turnaround gonna change? Are the imp. Are they hiring? Like I, I will. There'll be a registry. There's a whole bunch of topics that I just want to pick his brain on and see what the vision is from, from the leadership perspective of the company that controls them. And, and I, And I'm looking forward to being able to have that conversation. Oh, he. I mean, there's no better place than on Midlife to be able to do all this. And last thing you said Petty was by you. I can only imagine he would not be quiet allowing you to talk to Ryan. Was there any chirping from Petty as you had this conversation? That's a great question. So My dad, the whole time, you know, my dad is kind of a wallflower, so he was just kind of listening and let me do my thing to try to let Ryan know that I'm not a. A crazy person and that I'm. I'm a person that he could. He could say, Yu-Gi-Oh I'll. I'll have a conversation with and take me seriously. And Petty, you know, Petty is. He's a fun guy and he speaks his mind. So Petty jumped in, not in a negative way at all, but I. I think I said something like. It was something along the lines of, like, Yu-Gi-Oh you know, my channel and is midlife sports cards. I'm, you know, a predominant, like, vintage channel, although I do collect other stuff. But, you know, they're. I'm one of the. I would consider myself to be one of the. The larger ones, vintage card channels, where a lot of. If you want to speak to the vintage community, then if you could do it through my channel, that. Whereas some of the other channels that he's been on, you're not speaking as much to the vintage component of it. And then Petty started to jump in, and he was kind of talking about, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh his channel's. You know, And I was just like, petty, hold on a second. I was like, petty, hold on, please, just give me a second. Let me finish. So he was. He was cool, like, Petty. Petty and I can read each other pretty well at this point, and. And he could tell. He could tell just by me asking him to hang on and let me kind of wrap up the conversation. And he was really cool about it. So, Yu-Gi-Oh Petty. Petty was just being a positive, fun guy like he always is. And, but he let. He. He definitely let me steer the ship and. And take the lead. And. And so, Yu-Gi-Oh but. But, Yu-Gi-Oh so I think that answers that. Yu-Gi-Oh I. I love it. I love him. So. But then. So then. Sorry, let's hear the next one. I love that. Yu-Gi-Oh it was. It was really cool. And he was a cool guy. I mean, I know I've said that a couple of times, but it's like, you know, some of these. Sometimes executives of companies aren't down to earth. They don't really see things through the same lens as us. And like, you know, on Instagram, he doesn't have a bazillion followers. He has a smaller following, and he shares a lot of his collection and he collects. He has a lot of similarities to how I collect. He collects a lot of golf cards as well. I'm assuming he's a golfer. And Some vintage golf. And so we have some overlap there. And so there are times he's posted stuff and I'm. And it's cool. I like seeing the pictures that he posts and stuff, so. But Yu-Gi-Oh it was a, it was a good conversation, but I'm looking forward to expanding that and I'm looking forward to hopefully providing him an opportunity to clarify some things for the vintage community and, and answer some of the questions that I think a lot of us are curious about. So then on Saturday, I brought three or four cards to reholder. They were in old SGC slabs that had either the old flip or there was one that had kind of a crack. And so I just wanted to reholder them. And so I went over to the SGC booth to put them into reholder. And the first thing that happened was one of the cards I brought was my Blackbeard, because my Blackbeard has a little, had a little like a, like a nick on the edge. And for a card that that's that big, it was kind of bugging me. And so I, I, I wanted to reholder that, but I was scared to let it out of my sight. So I was like, well, at least this way I'd only have to mail it once. So I went over there and I started to do my submission to reholder these cards. And then I had one card to cross over. I had one pirate card that was in a PSA holder that I wanted to put in SGC holder. And I was talking to the guy. The guy was awesome. That was help that was helping me. It was Zebra cool guy. And so I said, hey, is Jesse around? Jesse Steinberg. So if you're not in the loop on this, Peter Steinberg is the one that really took SGC to prominence. And his brother still works at sgc. And his brother was just named as sort of like the lead at sgc. This, that was maybe three or four weeks ago that that happened. So I said, hey, it's Jesse here. Now, I don't recognize him, because Peter was out in the forefront. Like, Peter was on, on interviews. He was doing stuff content. So we all knew what he looked like. I don't know who Jesse is. So I, I said to the guy, hey, is Jesse here? And he goes, Yu-Gi-Oh he's right over there. It's just this very unassuming guy sitting behind the counter working along with everyone else. And do you hear that static? No, but what you're just saying is that. So Jesse is the new ce, the new head of sgc that took over from Peter, and then there wasn't one for a while. So now this is. So you literally went up to the head of sgc, who was just in the corner, right? Yu-Gi-Oh And. And so the guy was like, Yu-Gi-Oh do you want me to just hang on to your submission while you go talk? And he goes, Yu-Gi-Oh I'm getting. You're not getting static. I'm getting zero. All right, I'll keep going. So I end up going over there, and I start talking to him, and I introduce myself and I say, hey, Jesse, here's, you know, who I am, and here's my situation. And he listened. He was kind, he was thoughtful. He was responsive. He was. Technical problems from midlife Nation. There he is. I'm just. I'll just keep going. I'm sorry, everybody. So I'm out there and I'm talking to him, and I was very impressed. He was very well spoken. He was very thoughtful with what he had to say. He was listening to what I had to say. He answered questions within the boundaries of which I think he was allowed to answer questions. And so. So get to it. What did he say? Well, I wrote down. I didn't. Oh, dang it. I wrote down. I'm gonna go grab something, because I wrote down a quote that he said. I know. I'm sorry. You rushed me. Hold on. Oh, my God. Sorry, everybody. Oh, look at Greg. Oh, look at. We just. We just peered into a room that we've never seen of Greg. Oh, he closed it. Man, I thought we were getting behind the curtain of Greg Miller's life right there. I've never really paid attention to these doors that have cloudiness on the back of that. What is that door that's behind you? Is that the bedroom that you taped the other episodes on? That's my dining room. We've never seen that. Oh, no, we did. We did. When you put out cards of, like, Petty's or somebody's some. We've seen it before. That was at Petty's house. Oh. Have we ever seen your dining room before? Well, I could show you if you're interested. Yu-Gi-Oh just open up that door. Let's show the show midlife what we have here. Yu-Gi-Oh It's like wizard of Oz when, like, it becomes color as you walk through the doors. Look at us looking at new things at midlife, the cost of midlife. All right, There we go. All right. Okay. You're welcome, America. You're welcome. He. He was. I really like Jesse Steinberg. And why? What did he say? I. I. He said before the show started, I was unsure if I would be comfortable buying a big card in an SGC holder. Why? I was afraid that SGC wasn't going to be here forever. Okay. And I'm much more confident in SGC's future. After my conversation with Jesse and then I had a long conversation with the head of customer relationship say for you to get more comfortable. Okay, I'm going to read you the quote because again, what I was trying to do is ask him questions and have him give me answers. But I didn't want to violate any trust he was giving me because I didn't know what was on the record and off the record. So I cleared this quote from him. He's. I said to him at one time, I mean like for example, is SGC going to be around for the long term? Like, because if they're not around for the long term, then that affects people's confidence right now in buying cards in SGC slabs. And right now I think that for a high end card, not a cheaper card, but for a high end card, the gap between the PSA and the SGC premium has actually gotten a little bit bigger in my opinion. And he said, I said will they be around for the long term? And I wrote it down. He said, I absolutely guarantee we will be around in the future, 100%. And now here's the thing. When he says that you don't, is he being political? Is he being serious? But he looks me in the Yu-Gi-Oh and he said it with a level of confidence that I believe him. And I said to him, is it okay if I, I say this, if I use this quote? And he said 100, yes. And I said okay. And I now feel much more confident buying a big card in an SGC holder than I did when the show started. Because of that quote, because of the conversation that I had with Jesse Steinberg. He said we are expanding. He said we are hiring all positions and we are currently working. We are in the process of getting a new, bigger facility up that is going to expand our operations that should be ready in the next month or two and that's going to expand their capacity greatly. The new facility that they're about, they're preparing to move into. Now. I remember you very recently saying that you looked on job websites and you didn't see SGC hiring. Do you feel like they are really hiring or are they just saying that they're hiring? What's your thought on that? Three different employees, the head of quality control, the head of customer relations and see And Jesse, who I don't know what his technical role is, but he's basically the. The top guy right now at sgc, said we are. We are hiring. They said, we have graders grading five days a week, Monday through Friday, and we have optional overtime on Saturdays. They said, we don't make anybody do overtime, but we have optional overtime on every Saturday. And a lot of them are grading on Saturday. And I said, okay, so that it there, you know, that's a good thing. I said, how many graders do you have? Yes, that was my next question. I said, how many graders do you have? Because if you start doing the math and you're like, okay, say they grade this many an hour and they're pumping out these many cars before you say it. Did you get a number from him? So this answer did not come from Jesse. This answer came from the other two people that I talked to. Did they give you a number? They didn't give me an exact number because I. I felt like. It felt like that was something that they Goldin specifically disclose. But they gave me an estimate that allows us to narrow it some. They said it's more than a handful, but less than two handfuls. That means more than five or less than 10 is a handful. Five. I would think a handful is five because of us having five fingers. Is that how you consider a handful? That's the way I look at it, yes. David. Okay, interesting. Okay, that's more than I thought. I actually, I thought there was like three, so I thought there were two or three. And it sound. And he said another thing. He said that was interesting what they. They said. I. Again, there were three different people that I spoke to at length, and they said, our head of grading, who has been at the company for 30 years, is still the head of grading and is still in the big chair and has been there for 30 years. He's still there. He did not go to the. He did not go to PSA when a lot of people went over to psa. Interesting. And I said, well, how long have you been there? To the. To each of these guys? And they're like a while. Like more than a handful of years. Five to Donruss. All these guys, okay, more than one handful, but less than 2. Got it. I said, and this I really love. The answer to this was not a conversation with Jesse is with the other guys. I said, tell me, why didn't you go to psa? Because when PSA moved in, it's kind of well known that they had the opportunity to go or stay and these guys chose to stay. So I said, why did you stay? You didn't have to stay. Why did you stay? And they said, it's pretty simple. It's tribalism. We believe in sgc. We don't give. We're not giving up on sgc. We don't want SGC to go away. And this is. This is where we feel we belong. It's. It's. Our tribalism is we. We want to stay where we. We want to keep this brand going. We want to keep this alive. Determined to keep this as what it's been, which I think is a testament to, you know, Peter Steinberg and what he has done and what him being able to create that culture. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I thought it was a really interesting conversation that these guys basically said, you brought up in this conversation. Say that again. Did Peter's name get brought up in this conversation? Like, do. Have they had any communication with him or where he went or what his future could be, if, like, anything about him or. Not really. I talked to Jesse about Peter. I didn't feel like that conversation was on the record. So to keep it vague and to keep trust between what he had to say, he basically, he. He made it. He. He said, Peter's doing real well, but Peter's not in the industry right now, but he is. He's happy and healthy and things are good. Okay. And. Okay, that's interesting to hear. How about the. Like, I think that SGC as a. The people that work there are probably wanting SGC to do well and to continue. Was there any conversation about how PSA feels about sgc? They. I mean, I don't know if those guys know how PSA people feel about sgc. I think that they're working their tails off for SGC because this is where they've been for a while and they believe in the product. So, I mean, I didn't say, like, do these. Did the PSA guys, like, in the lunchroom, did they, like, throw spitballs at you? Like, I didn't. We didn't get into that. But they seem to be very proud to be working at sgc. And they. All three of them were certain. They. I mean, they were certain that SGC is not going anywhere. And you believe that they're going to be around for the long. From this conversation, you think, which you've told me before, you've been very skeptical on if SGC is going to be here in one year, three years. However amount of time you now, from this conversation, feel like they're going to be around for the next five years even. I mean based on the body language, based on them looking me in the Yu-Gi-Oh based on the certainty that all three of them, and these are high ranking executives in the company. I mean these are guys with master's degrees and stuff. They, I would be stunned. If SGC was not in existence in five years. I would be stunned. Yu-Gi-Oh That's, that's all changed based on this conversation, right? Yes, that, that's based on what they said to me and how they said it and with the certainty in which they said it, I would be stunned. Now I'm not at the inner meetings. I don't know, I don't, I have no clue what the, what the future is, but I would be stunned that, that the SGC brand is not there. That I can't send cards into SGC in five years. I would be stunned. Yu-Gi-Oh So, you know, a lot of our friends have had a difficult time over the last 24 months buying new cards in SGC holders and that they've been kind of going towards PSA because of that being an issue. And I even think you have sometimes have tried to buy some PSA cards instead of sgc. So now that you have this, is your mindset changing? Would you now buy a Grail card in an SGC holder where maybe you wouldn't have before? I mean technically I did buy a goal slash girl card at the national and NSGC holder in that Lincoln. I mean that Lincoln card is now in the top five cards in my collection and it's in an SGC holder. But I also bought a COB in an SGC holder and that was an expensive car or that was a PSA holder that wasn't an SGC holder. I mean I, I would go so far as to say like it's strongsville. I wouldn't have considered buying a $5,000 card if it was in an SGC holder. I wouldn't have done it. Yu-Gi-Oh Now, well, I guess I did with the Blackbeard, but that's a little bit of a different situation because that set, I'm doing it in SGC because I think they look so much better in scc. But I would say now I would be willing to buy a Cobb card or a Mathewson card or, or something like that. How about the biggest card in your collection? If you were to buy the biggest rail that you have, you would buy one in SGC at this moment. Now? Yu-Gi-Oh I, I, that's a great question. I mean, I'm just speaking for me. I'm not telling anybody else what to do. I've. I'll never tell anyone else to do something. The questions that I'm answering are for me and me only. I would say when I was at Strongsville 2026, if there was a Ruth, but it was in an SGC holder, quite frankly, I don't think I would have bought a $10,000 card in an SGC holder. If I went to the 2027 strong sill show and there was a Ruth that fit my Yu-Gi-Oh in an SGC holder, I would. Yu-Gi-Oh That's how powerful this conversation was. That's how much I believe these guys and what they had to say. And they're not advertisers for you, right? No. Like you. Yu-Gi-Oh They gave me. They gave me a. Like a. A shirt. But they were giving a shirt to everyone. Paid you off somehow. Yu-Gi-Oh they did. Gave a shirt to everyone. Again, no, I don't get. I'm not getting any money from them. Yu-Gi-Oh This is what I told them. I think that's really big news. I think it's huge news. And these are conversations I Goldin have had unless I went to the national and I said, I, I went after that, after all these conversations, I finished my submission and I went back over to Jesse and I said, I said to him this. I said, I believe everything you told me. I believe that SGC is in a good place now. I believe you. And what I want to do is I want to help you guys get the word out that SGC isn't going away because there's a lot of people out there who are certain that you are. Who are certain that you'll never be back. And they said. And there was a couple of guys standing there at that point and they said, give us till no more than the end of the year and our turnaround times will be back to 30 days or less. What? Yu-Gi-Oh Now I have a submission there right now, David. I have a submission there right now that I submitted on April 24th. Yu-Gi-Oh And it still is in received. And they're telling me by the end of the year they're going to get it down to 30 days or less. To me, that's a massive statement. It's a massive statement. And to me, if they're going into a bigger facility, if they are adding graders, if they are doing all of the things that they're telling me that they're doing, it's one of the biggest stories as a vintage collector. It's one of the biggest stories in the hobby right now, quite frankly. And, and I said to Jesse, I said, hey, if you want to. I, I said, I had a conversation with Ryan Hogue yesterday and, and I invited him on the channel and he goes, Yu-Gi-Oh he told me about the conversation. I was like, really? I was like, I was like, sir, I don't know if that I, I miss, I guess, unless I misunderstood. I said, you want to, I said, jesse, if you will come on, great. If Ryan will come on, great. If you and Ryan will come on, even better. I go, one of the things that was great about SGC is we got to hear directly from the head executive at the company and I think that we are thirsty for that opportunity. Again, that was part of the charm. And he, he's freshly new into the position and I think to expect him to immediately go out and start doing the circuit is probably not a realistic request. But I can tell you this, I stood next to shook hands with Ryan Hogue. I was very impressed with everything he had to say and how he treated me. And the same thing with, with Jesse Steinberg, the same thing with the other two executives at sgc. I was very impressed. And, and one of my comments to my follow up message to Ryan Hogue was you've got a really strong core group of executives at SGC and those guys are very impressive. And they're young, they're all young, they're all like early 30s at the most. But these guys were like smart, they were well spoken, they were dynamic. Like they've got a really strong core and it really gave me hope for the future of sgc. And, and let's face it, like, as vintage collectors, SGC is a big part of our collections. Whether we want to collect in SGC holders or not. We are, the vintage community is greatly affected in the vintage ecosystem by the health of sgc. It will greatly affect us and the values of our collections and our cards and our options. And so I am rooting as hard for SGC as anyone I have been from the beginning. That's one of the reasons, even through all of this over the last two years, during all of the ups and downs, mostly downs, I've been continuing to submit cards to them because I've said to people, if you want SGC to stay healthy, you have to continue to support them, you have to continue to sending cards. And I have, and you know, I, I hear the, I saw, I've seen a lot of videos and like PSA sold out, you know, all of their spots in two hours. And then they weren't taking submissions and BGS was slammed and CGC was slammed and Mike Baker was slammed and. And SGC was slow. And it's like when, when that is the message being, you know, put out there, that's not, that's not going to help sgc. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't put a message out that isn't true, but I, I submitted there and I saw other people. It wasn't like it was a ghost town, to be honest with you. I felt like the SGC booth was busier this year than they were last year. Okay. So I'm now coming in from not having this conversation. And I love this. I love that you gave us so much information on sgc. This is my first time hearing most of this information. I need them to prove it to us. Okay. And I need there to be some sort of movement in and show us that there's improvement. Because we just have seen since PSA has come in and took over the brand, it has decreased and we have not seen any positive sign from sgc. It's been a slow and sometimes fast movement to decrease. So if you're saying that they can improve on times within five months by the end of the year, that's a big thing. If they really do hire people and not just say it, that's a huge thing, too. I love SGC. Listen, I'm not somebody who stopped buying SGC. I. My biggest card that I own, my 48 Leaf, Jackie, is in an SGC holder. So I really. And I really like the way SGC slabs look. And I loved being able to submit to them and get them back within a reasonable amount of time. But I. You. They have to. They're saying it, which I love, and I need to see it implemented for me to just be like, thankfully, SGC is back and five months is fine. Right. PSA one-of-one even tell us when we can start submitting cards again. But by the end of the year, if we can see improvement, that will be a very big deal with what you just said. Yu-Gi-Oh and I mean, I'm not even. I'm not even. I haven't even touched on other topics within the conversation. You know, like the, the set registry was a topic and, and we could. Well, let's hear about that. Okay, but let me at least first quickly respond to what you just said. Is I agree that the proof is in the pudding. It's, you know, show me. Don't tell me. I agree with that. But my takeaway is basically this When SGC was purchased from Collector's Universe and then Peter, you know, resigned and then PSA opened a facility in Boca Raton to, in the same building in the same office space as the sgc. This is about a year, is a little over a year ago that all that happened. The impression. And, and I'm just reading between the lines, so this, take this with a grain of salt, but the impression I got was they said to all the SGC employees, if you want to stay at sgc, cool, but if you want to come over and work under the PSA label, you can. And the impression that I got is a lot of them took the offer to go under the PSA brand and maybe it was because those people felt like there was more security under that brand. They saw them as the, the gold standard in the grading industry. They. I, I don't know. But that was through convert through many conversations last year to the, over the last 13 months. That's the impression I got. When that happens, if you take PSA or If you take SGC's grading capacity, say it's at a hundred. And then you, you harvest, you know, 60, 70% of the staff, it takes a long time to rebuild that. They lost square footage in the building. They lost graders, they lost intake people ship. I mean, they lost all sorts of people. And, and now they're, they're getting to the point where you. They took a dip because they got harvested. You know, I mean, and now I think, I think we're going to start to see a climb back from sgc. I really. They also had a significant decrease in submissions too, by a huge amount. So you would think that. And I get it. Maybe. Is it the chicken or the egg? Did the submissions decrease because of all of the other issues? I understand that, but let's not get politically correct with this. I completely understand. I have to hear about the set registry because we're running out of time. Did they mention anything about that? I asked specifically about because about three years ago at the National, Peter said our set registry is almost ready. It'll be released very soon. And it will. We're just trying to make sure it's right and not just rush it. And then all of a sudden collectors bought SGC and all of a sudden the sg, the registry thing was, you know, gone. No talk about it again. And the, the impression that I got is that the. I, I don't expect SGC to have a registry anytime soon, but I, I got the impression that it's not impossible that in the future When I buy, when I buy a Lexus, it has a heated steering wheel. When I buy a Corolla or a Camry, it doesn't. And, and I think that, I think that what they are positioning and have been positioning SGC as is not an inferior product, but just a product that has, doesn't have all the features of the PSA product as a way to differentiate them. And so to put time, resources, energy, staffing into a registry when, when that's more of a bell and a whistle on a different product line. I, I get the impression that it's, it's not, it's not something that's going to happen soon. It's not impossible that it eventually happens, but I don't, I don't expect that to be something we hear about anytime in the near future. And again, most vintage collectors, what they want most is consistent grading, which I believe SGC has. They want faster turnaround times, which I believe is going to be coming back from sgc. And I, I think that it's, it's the nice, you know, tuck slab where the card pops, especially an older pre war vintage card which we have. And I think, I think that that's, those things are the focus. But I think they got cut to the bone when they lost some of their staffing over to the PSA side of the, of the conference room. And now they're rebuilding it and, and I believe that they stopped the hemorrhaging, they've stopped the arterial bleed and now they're ready to start rebuilding. And I think that's what's going to happen. And, and it's very possible that I'm naive and I am certain we're going to get comments here. They're gonna say, oh my gosh, this guy's naive. He believed everything that they said. That is, there are already people that have typed that down by in the comments before we've gotten to this point. But I am, I, I just, the feeling that I got from these guys and talking to them is I believe them and I hope that I can have them on in the future moving forward to be able to articulate it in their own words and to hear it from them instead of hear it from me again. I'm not on staff, I'm not getting paid, I'm not sponsored. I got a shirt. You got paid. That's what I think. I believe them. I just wanted to say one thing which I don't think I've ever discussed before, but I did, I was just trying to look it up I wasn't trying to be rude. I was trying to look it up on my phone, where I either sent a message to Ryan or Nat, like, eight months ago, and I sent them a message about the registry. Is there any possibility that this is going to be sometime in the future? And they responded, it's not going to happen anytime in the future. And it's not like, for the foreseeable future, it's not going to happen. So don't hold your breath on that part. I agree with you. Yu-Gi-Oh but that was. I mean, I think that that was a very epic conversation. I think that they need to have more communication with us. I mean, I understand you're a new CEO and to go on to Midlife and to discuss with the people who. This is your bread and butter. These are the vintage collectors that care about SGC the most. I think it'd be very powerful for them to come on and answer the questions that we all want to hear, but it's great that you were able to get in there and get a lot of the things answered already, which I actually feel a lot better about SGC from this conversation than what I felt before. So. Yu-Gi-Oh now we just need them to come on. Yu-Gi-Oh I would. I would like that a lot. And. And, I mean, I would assume they would come on the Midlife channel, but I don't know what. I mean. I'm gonna basically say, we can do this, we can do this. We can do this for both of you, for one of you, for more other people. Whatever you want. I just. I. I want. There are a lot of vintage collectors who have concerns, and I want to help be a part of the communication so that people have more information to make decisions that are best for them. And so I'm. I'm looking forward to those conversations happening regardless of what platform it's on and regardless of which people from the collector slash SGC hierarchy are willing to come on. I would absolutely love to just talk, get to know these guys better and. And hear what their plans are. Sounds good to me. Any final thoughts? Oh, we didn't even do our. Oh, my. Let's do it. Let's do a minute yu-gi-oh, my gosh. Here we go. David chase recommends boom. Dr. J. Rookie. There's only about six cards that are the most iconic in basketball. This is one of them. It's not the most expensive card, and it's a really fun card to find. And if you really want to give yourself a challenge. Next to his elbow, there's a fisheye on 95 of these cards. Try to find one without that fisheye. But, Greg, you don't have this card. It's psychedelic. It's 70s, it's fun. Why don't we have this in your collection? It's been on my list for a while, but just haven't done it. Okay. Too easy to find it. That's my answer. Oh, my God. But the card that you and everybody else needs in their collection, just me. Is of a goat. It's a goat card. It's a card that is nostalgic. It is a card that is beautiful. And it is a card of a goat. Actually, it's a beagle. The Snoopy rookie card. I need. That card is a card that everybody needs. This is the first Snoopy card. Look at how happy Snoopy looks myself, which is a card like that. I mean, I bought. This one's in a PSA2, I think I paid, I don't know, 220 bucks. And that's, like, considered his. One of his first cards. That is his first card. Oh, my God. Look at the center. Why we go for vintage, not. Not sports. Look at the. Look at the centering. David Chase. That is a centered card. That. That looks like a. That. I. I'll take that card from you, Greg. David Chase, do you have something you want to sing us out to? Do? We have time. All right. You better hurry. Quickly. Look at what's happened to me I can't believe it myself Suddenly I'm on top of the world we could have been somebody else Believe it or not I'm walking on air I never thought I could feel so real Flying away on a wing of a plane who could it be? Believe it or not it's just me.