The Rise of the Soakers + PSA Fraud? + Star Jordan Controversy | The Hangover Ep 8 Part 1

Let's do this. The hangover. What is up, gentlemen? The Hangover, episode 8, Sports Cards Live. David Chase, Josh Adams. I'm Jeremy Lee. Welcome everybody. We're recording on July 7th. It's mid afternoon, early morning. Depends what time zone you're in. Hey, it's, it's wine o' clock somewhere. What's going on, fellas? David, how you doing, buddy? I'm good. Good to see you and good to have Josh Adams on the show with us. Josh Adams on the Hangover. What's up, buddy? How are you doing there? Good. Happy to be here. Nice little break in the middle of the day. It's one o' clock in Chicago. So I thought why not talk about baseball cards for an hour or so. Well, we're going to talk about more than baseball cards. We got baseball cards, we got basketball cards, we got some superhero cards, we got some custom cards. We got lots to talk about. So Sports Cards Live. Saturday night was a great episode. We had Robert Rothenberg on as our featured guest. Robert joined us, which was, which was a, he was, he was a, he was a great guest. Guys, what were your initial sort of thoughts on, on Robert and, and him being on the show? David, were you on with him? I don't even remember so much going on. I was, I was on with him and I thought he was great. I thought he had great takes. He had different kind of takes than what the normal collectors even think about, which I thought just gave us a really great perspective of, of the way he was collecting. And I, I, I thought he was a great guest. Yeah, well spoken. He had a voice for radio. As a bunch of people mentioned, if you haven't seen this episode we were talking about, Guys, you can go over to Sports Cards live episode from Saturday night. It was a great episode and yeah, you can see the whole thing in full there. This is the Hangover. This is exclusive to the Sports Card Clubhouse Network. Let's bring Joe on the screen. Joe, welcome, buddy. How you doing, man? I'm doing well. Good to see everybody. I just watched that crazy Argentina game. Good, good. So we are good to hear who won, who won the game. Argentina came back from nil 2 to win 3 2. So wow, Messi's still alive. Wow. From down to nothing. That doesn't happen often in soccer. You come back from a 20 deficit. But good to hear. Messi, he scored one goal. Yeah, he scored the second goal. So, you know, there's a huge, the last night, Joe, you and I were on the phone as we were Kind of together concurrently going through the Fanatics weekly auction. I was preparing for the Hunt which is coming up on. On here on Thursday and then the weekly show on Sunday. The. It's probably the best Fanatics Auction weekly we've seen maybe ever. I usually have like anywhere from 80 to 120 cards that I heart to talk about on the weekly show. I have 210Joe. After we got off I went all the way down to the end of the auction. I got 210 cards to watch. And for anybody who's keeping track, if you are watching the hunt, the. The exclusive content that I am now doing on the Fanatics Collect Collect originals platform. I've got a. I got. First of all we're going to do a giveaway for the first time in that. In that show's history that'll happen on Sunday. On Sunday we're going to do it but we're gonna. I think we're. Yeah, we'll do the giveaway on Sunday. 200 worth of card or cards that I can buy and give away. So that'll be a lot of fun. But yeah, it's gonna be a crazy show. The Hunt is going to be fun. It's. And the weekly on Sunday will be fun as well. But also on Pops and Comps. Guys go buy Pops and Comps on Amazon if you have not yet. That is my book. It is great. I'm carrying more and more people. Actually it was really cool on Sports Cards Live. Somebody found the YouTube show by buying the book. That was pretty cool to see. I hope there's more people doing that. But that was pretty cool. And then last thing before we really dive in, I want to mention. Well, first of all I'm going to show you here this guys, this is the Fanatics Collect. This is Fanatics Live on the. On the PC. You can obviously get there on your phone too. But if you come here and this is the main page and you kind of look at the left, you go to collect originals right there. That's where you can go in to see all of the. Why isn't my click working here? Oh, we're in it. We're in Collect originals here and you can see all the shows coming from the various creators. So a whole bunch before we hear do the Hunt which is right here. Thursday at 3:00'. Clock. That's my time. That's 5:00 Eastern. But then we have our weekly auction ending. Watch party. There's Cajun right there. Some other familiar faces. Kyle King of Cards going live Here tomorrow night. There's Trike, Troy Wright, great guy in the Hobby over there. So Adam Gray right over there with his across the Hobby Part 2. So check that out, guys. And to be eligible to for a giveaway, you have to be in the Fanatics app. And we'll be doing that again Thursday for the Hunt, which is exclusive to fanatics, not YouTube, but the weekly goes to both over here. So just want to share all that with you guys. And then finally I gotta share. I talked about a bit on Saturday, but, but here on the Hobby Spectrum, this is the directory, but a new feature now. If you click on it here, let's click on David Novak. He's a nostalgic. He's upstate, who was with us on the. On Saturday a couple weeks ago. Now if I zoom in, you can you get this little bar graph here which actually shows how although he's a nostalgic, he also dips his toes in here as a purist, here as a precisionist, a hybrid and a builder as well. So you can kind of see that we're not putting. The Hobby Spectrum is not putting you in a bucket per se. It's identifying your core archetype and then highlighting how you dip your toes into the other ones as well. So pretty cool. Happy that that's out there now and more deployments to come there. So we have a bit of an agenda, guys. We're gonna talk. We're going to talk about Sports Cards live from Saturday night. We're going to talk about the Steve Taft interview that went live yesterday that I did on, on here, on, on. On the sports cards live YouTube channel. Not here on the clubhouse. You got to go get out. Get that. On Sports Cards we got some show and tells. So let's get into it, fellas. The first thing on sport, David, on Sports Cards Live, we talked about restoration, alteration, all these things. And I want to go around the horn here and kind of get our. Any, any sort of, not final thoughts, but updated thoughts on where do you guys fall when it comes to buying cards that might have gone to the spa, been dunked in distilled water maybe? Is distilled water good enough to not change the molecular structure of our cards? Do we care about changing the molecular structure of our cards? And we got some comments on that video that we're going to share. Well, so what do you think, guys? Should we do, should we look at the external comments on that video first or should we go to around the horn here, David, because you and I spent some time sort of thinking about the structure. This. You can show the comments. Comments first. Okay, let's do that, guys. So Joe, Josh, we're going to start with some of those comments here. And here, here are some of the first ones that we're going to. I'm sorry that we're blocking ourselves out, but Joe, we. Joe and Josh, we can see your shoulders, but that's okay. So first comment here came from Mark Stein. He says PSA rarely honors their vaunted guarantee. He goes on to say on net 54, countless altered examples were shown with indisputable before and after evidence and failed to receive the guarantee. Since PSA is judge and juror, it's a laughable conflict of interest. And by the way, PSA cannot identify cards worth a damn. So the reason this comment came is because during us talking on, on sports cards live about alteration, restoration, maintenance, a new word that was brought up. This guy is coming up. Mark Stein is coming up and saying to us, listen, they can't identify these things at all. They don't even honor their guarantee in many cases. Listen, I've only had one experience going to PSA for their guarantee and it worked. It was on a counterfeit card. It wasn't on a restored, altered or may or maintained card. It was on a counterfeit card in their slab. So maybe that was an easier slam dunk. But I find it disenchanting that they're not meeting their guarantee. And I think my response to him on there was, well, there goes that then. Because if they're not honoring it, then what good is that guarantee? And if they do have the full rights to do it to, to decide whether or not to, to. To honor the guarantee or if the guarantee is worthy of being honored, then other comments that came from the. And then we'll talk about them all. So this is really, this is a really interesting one because at the top there Jeff Bedine, who's the guy who we talked about his card. So first of all, here's, here's Jeff's card. Jeff has the before and after on the left and the right. It's the same card. It just. The after side looks like a completely different card. He might have juiced up the scan a bit because even the red ink looks more vibrant on the right than it does on the left. But that doesn't matter. At the end of the day, you can see he removed all that paper and all the ink was intact. The paper was intact underneath. After he soaked the card and got rid of the excess paper from the Scrapbook. He comes on and he says, that was my card, guys. I soaked it in warm distilled water. Yes, but only to remove the added paper. This is not an alteration, it's a restoration. Well, then I wrote and I said, hi, Jeff, thanks for jumping in. I hope you managed to hear all of our thoughts on the process. Is there any chance that a restoration can result in even the smallest alteration as well? If you think not, do you have scientific evidence? These are honest questions, not rhetorical. Cheers from me. He does write back below. He writes, water is water is water. This does not molecularly change the makeup of a piece of cardboard. To which Rage jumps in and says, really? You never heard of the term water damage, huh? Shake my head. Me neither. We are doomed, folks. So before we go around the horn and talk about this, you know, my comment back to Jeff on the above comment was, I think it's still a fair question. I don't think it's been answered. If you are using water to clean a card and you then have to do. I don't know what you do, but does the water has now been in the car. Does the card look the same after you take it out of the water? Has it changed the molecular structure? Has it changed the bonds between the molecules in there? I know it sounds pretty high tech, but does it? He says. Well, he does not answer my question. He simply says, water is water is water does not change them. Does not molecularly change the makeup of a piece of cardboard. So I get so to me, that makes me think he's a chemist. Literally. That's the answer he's telling. Listen, Jeff, I'm sure you're watching this, and that's fine, but you didn't answer the question. You are making assumptions that, that it does not change the structure of the card. Rage says, have you ever heard of water damage? I don't know, guys. You get water damage in your basement, molecularly impacts your floorboards. It. It can. It can ruin your. Your drywall. It can leave stains, maybe some of them. And I do know from having water problems in houses before, those stains can change over time. They can get darker, stronger as they're oxidized, I believe. Listen, no chemist here, but I think Rage makes a really good point, you know, if in his flippant way, he did. But I'm not satisfied from Jeff Bedine, who did. Who. Who did do this card here, that nothing changes in the structure of the card. Someone on the show mentioned that the fibers will expand. I don't want. Or they Were swell. We don't want. I don't want swollen fibers in my card. So. Really interesting comments there. So let's go around. I guess we'll start with you, David, because we had talked about this a bit. So, Josh, Joe, get your thoughts ready. David, what do you think about all that? Yeah, I don't know. It would be. I would love to hear the molecular structure, how that changes with water. I mean, what we just kind of always think of water is something that cleans and not changes items. So. And obviously that picture is really showing a card that improved. Right. So when we're talking about like water damage, and obviously water did not damage that card. It. It helps it. Now, is the card a little larger or smaller or things like that, which we can't see from a photo? Possibly. But there's an interesting part of this also, which I was talking to somebody else in the hobby about. Do you mind putting up that picture again, Jeremy, of the sweet cat back? Look at how that red dot next to the word the in the fourth line is very red. And the one on the left, it's not. And I always. Even if it's a juice scan, which maybe it is, maybe it isn't, it is showing more vibrant color in a card that is cleaned, which I've always kind of thought about a card that's cleaned, that it dulls the color. Right. And we can obviously see that there are some parts of this where the red, even if the scan is not the exact same, is more vibrant in, like that dot where you can barely see the color in it on the left and you can see it on the right. So I just thought that that was another interesting aspect of this because we were both, when we were talking about this previously also, Jeremy, we were saying, is it like brushing the color away? Is the color. Is the paint coming off as we do this? And I mean, in that photo, it doesn't look like that. But again, we need to kind of dying that out a little bit more. The thing that surprised me about comments on this video is before doing this video, when we discussed this for like the full week before we had this. This episode. And I was thinking that we were going to get a lot of comments from people who are precisionists that were annoyed at us having this conversation. And I kind of feel like the people that commented on this video in this post and the Facebook post, it was the opposite. It was the soakers that were kind of annoyed at us for questioning that it wasn't like restoration, which was okay. And that just kind of surprised me because it really shows that I think we're the minority to be questioning it as much as we do, which is. It's the uprising of the soakers. The uprising of the soakers. And one more comment just to, just to follow up. So I went to the original Facebook post and, and here it is. You can see it right here. And he writes, this is just after the show. He writes, I guess Jeremy Lee picked this up and this was on his podcast. Yes, simply warm water here. No molecular change. Any links to the video. So again, he's doubling down on the no molecular change. And he, I think he said, I forget where it was, but he mentioned somewhere to me that he's been in the hobby for over 40 years. Yeah, I would have been. I would have felt more comfortable if he told me he's been a chemist for over 40 years versus being in the hobby for over 40. But, but. So I still, I still feel like the jury is out. But yes, this. We are living in the era of the rise of the soakers. Title potential caption potential right there. So, but fun conversation and, and an important one to be had because there are people out there who think that this is going to become the next big thing. There are people out there who. Someone even sent me a text message today or like a DM on Instagram basically saying, what would you do, Jeremy, if PSA changed their stance and all of a sudden was. Was tolerant of restoration? And my response was, well, PSA does not have agency over my hobby philosophy, so how dare you even insinuate that they would. That PSA has, has power over my, over my, my philosophy. I was almost insulted that they would assume that. Like, why would you even ask that question? So, okay, let's go around the horn here. Joe, what about you? Any, any thoughts on this topic and what you just saw with these comments? Well, it's a complex issue and it brings up a lot of questions in my mind. I don't know if I have a, A fixed, fully formed opinion. One of the things that, you know, has always gone through my mind is if you're, if you're altering a card and not disclosing it and have a goal of selling it for a higher price, there, there feels like there's something a little unethical about that. Now somebody made the point, I think, in the chat on Saturday night that, like, our cards are not ours forever. And I think that's kind of an interesting. It's thrown me into a little bit of an existential loop. On the one hand I can do anything I want with my cards attitude, but then on the other hand, you know, there will be like, after you are gone, your cards will go somewhere. Maybe they'll go to your, you know, your offspring and maybe they will pass it on. And what we don't know is over time, if even warm distilled water will have an effect on, on the cardboard. And so that, that's, that's kind of just the, the, the spinning cycle that my brain does. I don't, it doesn't take me necessarily anywhere. I, I'm, I, I find myself probably moved just a tiny bit more than I used to be in a fixed mindset of absolutely nothing ever. But I even that I kind of question in my own thinking if I'm just, if I'm being won over because the other component of all this is one, PSA can't necessarily detect it, right. And two, you know, I can't detect it at least until something were to happen. So, you know, does a tree make a sound in the woods if nobody's there to hear it? Like, is it an issue if, if somebody does it? Well, quote unquote. Well, I think, I think David made that point on Saturday night too. It's like, well, that's a pretty, that's a crappy restoration job there. And so, you know, then, then we start to evaluate that. So I again don't have a fully formed opinion, but I acknowledge that it's a complex issue and I understand that in this space we're in, in the hobby space, people have strong feelings. And you know, I, I, I, I respect people who have a zero tolerance to this. I respect their opinion, I lean in that direction. But I'm, I'm not sure that I'm completely sold that there isn't room for some degree. As you said, Jeremy, like pantyhose cleaning off the wax, taking it to the next level, a little, a little spit to, to shine up your card on, on the fly. But you know, where, where does it stop? Like it's a spectrum. I'm, I'm going to go to the, the local airport here later today and I'm gonna ask if it's okay if I open up a kiosk for spit shining your sports card instead of like right beside the shoe guys. Right, right. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. So two things. First of all, when you mentioned Joe about people trying to get one over and being sort of sneaky about it, that's what I was referring to fraud. People are committing. If you are trying, if you are trying or endeavoring to commit PSA fraud, because this isn't like you said, they're your cards. You can do whatever you want with them. You, you can, regardless of who's going to own them in the future. Hobby ethics would say, let's consider ourselves more to be the, the. What's it called when you. The eyes of the world. No, sorry. We are the owners of these things. We, we are the stewards of these cards while we own them versus, you know, the end all, be all. So there is that as well. But yeah, you can do whatever you want. Ethics would say, no, we got to care because we're only stewards. We got to care about what's going to happen down the road to these cards. However, you can do whatever you want. So the. But, but if you are committing PSA fraud because it's not illegal to do this, but it's PSA fraud, it's not general legal fraud. So. So the other thing is that we can't really tell what happens to these cards sometimes over the long term. But one of the things that's real that no one talks about that's really interesting is that once a card is in a slab, that slab masks and hides certain flaws that you wouldn't otherwise know. Like maybe the card is Boeing, maybe it's got waves in it that you can't necessarily tell. So just because it's in that slab, you know, there's other, like I think about water damage and you notice like a ripple on, on your drywall. Like, guys, this is cardboard. This isn't even salt. This is, these aren't floorboards or dry. This is cardboard. So the fact just to say that it's water, that's not, that's not a get out of jail free card to me. You got to come with, with scientific evidence, scientific data showing that water will not molecularly change the structure of the card. Okay, those are my responses to you, Joe. Great comments. Josh Adams, where are you at on all this, buddy? I have a couple of things so. You know, I'm reminded of Romeo and Juliet. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. They keep talking about restoration alter. It's all the same thing. You're changing the appearance of the card to make it look more expensive. This guy can say he's restoring it, not altering it. It's. It's a distinction without a difference. I am of the opinion. I'm a zero tolerance guy. I've always been, you can't change anything on the card. He changed something on the card. There's paper stuck to it. Sorry. There's paper stuck to it. That's. So that's what happened. When a card travels 100 years through time and he's only doing it to get a better grade for psa, there's a reason he didn't show the front of the card. And I believe if I'm wrong, David, he did say he wasn't. Didn't want to reveal what the card was because he didn't want PSA finding out. Is that accurate or am I misremembering that? I don't remember. I, I, you're probably right, but I don't remember if he showed the front of the card. I think you are right. He only showed the back of this one. I was talking about a different card when. Okay, I just want to be accurate. But he didn't show the front of that card and there's a reason for that. So I'm of the. You shouldn't touch a card at all. Sometimes you don't get PSA tens and that's okay. Life isn't that reason is PSA fraud. I think because people don't want to get caught by psa. They don't want their hat. So. But Josh, I'll push back on one thing on behalf of, of just to play devil's advocate because I'm also sort of torn on this piece because you said it's got paper on it. Too bad, so sad. That's the results of 100 year life. I love that mindset. But the other, the other side of the other shoulder, people would say, well, what about like refreshing the card, Giving a second lease on life, like, you know, a make, giving it a makeover. You know, you think about a homeless person coming in off the street. I know that's not a good one, but like giving the car to makeover, it's bringing it back to its original form. What is, what is like? Josh, I understand for you and for me, I don't know that I want that either. But what about for other people? What is, what is wrong with giving the card a chance to look like it did back in the day because you're not disclosing it and you're doing it only to get to do it for more money. I've never heard of anyone. Sorry, sorry, sorry. But you said the only reason people do it is for the better grade. I do think that people do do it because they just want the cards looking better. Some People do it without even sending it in for grading. They literally put it back in their binder. You're so. Yeah, you're good with that. You're good with. I mean, are you. Are you okay with people doing this for their own collections and binders? Yeah. But you know what, though? Eventually, like Joe said, we only hope. We only own these cards for a brief period of time, you know, so. So I'm with you. Disclosure, transparency, that's what it's all about for me. So I think we're all on the same page there. There's another example of this. There's an ena slaughter that we didn't get to on Saturday that I want to bring up. So I'm going to share this image on the screen now. This is there. This is the before on top, after on the bottom on both this and that sweet cap T206. It blows my mind how good these guys are at getting this, this, this glued on paper off the card. Look at the bottom. Look at how good it looks. All the ink is still there. You do notice some toning. It's. It's weird. It's almost two colors. You got the blue and the gray. Blue on the left, gray on the right. David, you sent me this image. What's going on here? What are your thoughts? It's hard to. It's hard to not like the one on the bottom. And I do believe that we have a lot of cards, unfortunately, in our collection that are the ones on the bottom that we have no idea. And that's what this is telling me, because if I saw both of these cards, they would both be okay in my collection because I'm okay with back damage, but I'd probably be paying more for the one on the bottom. And so they got me. They got me on this one. It's so funny, Jeremy, because when you were talking about, like, how it stays in the slab, I had that. I had that written down. I was like, does it get more brittle? And we just don't know. I wrote that down right before you made that comment. So that was a very funny thing to think about. And, Joe, I'm pushing back just for fun on. No, actually for Josh, I'm going to ask you first, and then I'm going to ask Joe. Josh. So when you're saying that nothing can be changed within a card, would you have. And this is extreme on purpose, if there's a little piece of dirt on the card, you would have an issue with somebody with a cloth wiping that dirt off. Yeah, you got it. Either it's all or nothing. That's kind of my position. It's got to be all or nothing, because then if it's dirt, okay, then it's a scratch, then it's a pencil, then it's this, then it's that. So my position is very. I don't mean it's archaic, but it's all or nothing. But what about. But hold on a second. Because I, I want to. I want to dive into that a little bit more. David, what about. Josh, if you take your card, it's raw, you hold it in your hands, and you notice some of the, like, gum powder on it, and you simply go and blow the chemicals from your. The gas from inside your body on. No, no, seriously. What about blowing the. What about blowing dust or dirt off a car? Like, I was confused on David's question because David is your. Like, there are. There's two different things going on here. You can have a car that has some. Some. Some gunk that is, like, kind of stuck to it versus, like, where you can't blow it off versus where you can blow it off. You wipe it on your shirt a little bit. Right. To, like, get the little bit of stuff, like the little stuff off of it. Right. I'm just saying there's. There's so many layers to this. Right. That I know. The reason why I ask that is because I think that 99% of people would be okay with you giving a little wipe off to the car. Yeah, right. Clicking the bugger off the card. Exactly. You know, so. So that's why I'm saying it is that there are different levels. And when you're saying that I just have a zero tolerance, I just think it's okay to maybe think that there could be different levels. Now, I don't know if this is the right level, but I just think it's okay to kind of think about that as a different level of it. But I totally appreciate your point, and I've always had that same mindset. And with you, Joe, when you mentioned that you respect people who have no tolerance, that's telling me you do not respect people who do have tolerance. Wasn't that. Oh, did Joe say that? Sorry, Joe said that. Okay, so, Joe, you said you respect the people who have no tolerance in any kind of cleaning and this up. And that's the part that I kind of has always had that same mindset too. But isn't it kind of funny to hear the responses and to see that we're the minority by having that thought. Right. Does it make you feel any different about it when a large percentage of collectors out there, they are okay with this aspect of this, like. Right, like what's your thought on that? I, I see what you're saying. And, and I, I'm. First of all, I guess I'm not entirely sure that, that, that it has changed to the degree that that is the majority. It might be, it might be behind closed doors, it might be, it might not be in terms of what people would say out loud, but it's, it's sounding like it's trending in that direction. Right. I mean, that's kind of what you're saying. So for me to say I respect those people, it sounds like I'm coming from the high and mighty position. But maybe if indeed the tide is changing, I guess where I would go with that is that, you know, in terms of the trajectory of the conversation, I think it's been traditionally unacceptable and maybe the trajectory of the hobby is moving in the direction where there is some openness to that. But I don't know how much the openness is like, oh, well, it's okay in the comic world, so maybe it's okay in the sparks card world versus kind of what Josh was saying, a sort of mercenary motivation to, to make it okay, if that makes sense. So I, I guess that's, that would be my, my pushback to your pushback is there's a, there's a larger conversation that's been going on for a long time. And so I'm probably an old head, right. I'm a kind of an older sensibility collector. And maybe, maybe, maybe it's, maybe I'm sort of telling on myself in that regard by saying I respect those people, I respect that position. But good, good, good, good consideration because it, it kind of teases out where we're at. Okay, good. Anything else on this topic, guys? No, we're good. Okay, let's move on then. And let's talk about the, the episode I did, the non live show with Steve Taft, who is known as kind of, I believe he's known as one of the preeminent commenters and experienced people when it comes to star cards. And I had him on. After a couple years of, of talking about having him on, we finally did and it was just a one on one discussion. Went for about an hour and 20 minutes. So it's over on Sports Cards Live was a great discussion, although it happened about two weeks ago, so I don't remember everything about it. But we, it, it dropped on Sports Cards Live yesterday on Monday, July 6th. And we've had some great comments already. I've had a lot of DMS about it as well, coming at it from all sorts of of directions. So like we just did with that, that last one. David, I want to start with you. You were very excited for this episode. I think you probably were too, Joe, because you are very interested in the star card world. Josh, we'll see if you have any thoughts on this as well, of course. But David, I want to start with you. Just your general thoughts on the interview there, the discussion that we had, and then we'll get into some of those comments that came. So was it, was it everything you'd hoped for? David? Yeah, I, I really enjoyed it. And the part of the conversation that kind of stuck with me the most is when you were talking about counterfeits of the 101 card, which was a little bit different than the other cards, which I know that there's lots of, you know, issue one and issue two, whatever that scenario is. But the one on one card is the one that's kind of the, it shows a lot in the hobby, right? That that is the Michael Jordan card. And I thought it was very interesting that Steve thought that there are that he has not seen a fake in a slab, a Beckett or PSA slab. And that surprised me just because PSA stopped slabbing for such a long period of time that I would have assumed that probably one of the reasons why they stopped was because they ended up slabbing a few counterfeits. But that's just my, that's me guessing and speculating. But the thing that I love, Jeremy, that you asked and it kind of, it ended up kind of going quickly was you said we only know the counterfeits that we know. And I think that that's a really great point as us all being skeptical in the hobby to just know that, I mean, really there could be tons of fake cards out there. And I mean, this star card is like, you know, the paper is wrapping paper that it's printed on pretty much. It's so thin and stuff. I'm just very surprised that there aren't more counterfeits out there that are in slabs. And I think it's something to think about that I do believe with technology improving, it's something to be scared of, of ways that people are going to spend significant amount of money to counterfeit cards. And who knows? If we just don't know, we just don't have the technology and the knowledge to know of these counterfeits. I thought that was really interesting. Good, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Joe, your sort of initial responses to that discussion. Yeah, I mean, I've been, you know, kind of paying attention to star company issues since the, the late 90s, and I've read articles and many, you know, chat boards, you know, blowout forums about the ways that you can detect. So I've always felt like Star has had like, like Steve was saying, if you, if you know, a few things, if you're, you're sort of in the know what to look for, it's actually not that complex. To David's point, what I find fascinating about the challenge of counterfeiting is that you would have to replicate the actual devices that they were using to print the cards. And that becomes incredibly idiosyncratic to the point where, like, I, I think that's, that's one of the issues is like, it. Because you can, you can tell a paper, you can tell the paper of Star cards and you can. There's just certain things. It's kind of similar to like a T206 card. It's like, you know, you smell it, you. There's so many characteristics, if you're familiar with the cardboard and the printing that would tip you off. So I agree, like, we can get sophisticated, but I think the sophistication would have to get into replication of the actual machines that they were using and, and, you know, down to the, the ways that they were, you know, chopping them up. So anyway, I was, I, as, As a someone that's kind of waxed and waned in my own collecting of Star cards, I was just, I was happy to see you have someone that has such a vast knowledge because it feels like in the hobby space we need, people need these updates, you know, if they haven't done their own research, it's all there. You can go on many websites and learn a great deal about what differentiates the type 2 from the regular release, but people aren't always doing that and, and human beings tend to kind of take the lazy path. And you know, the other aha element that, you know is not that aha at all. It's quite, quite understandable and predictable is that as soon as PSA went back to grading them, that's when everybody felt better about it. And I wonder why that is. Yeah, right. Which ties into, if just to the other topic from before PSA were to start accepting restored cards, how would people feel about it? And if everybody just went along, I would be very disappointed. In the masses, which I think there's already reason to be disappointed in many of the masses as it is. Two, two thoughts that came from that, Joe. Great comments, by the way. Machines used. You mentioned the machines used and you mentioned chopping them up. And I think that what, what I'm thinking there. And, and this goes not just for Star cards, but this goes even for a lot of like 90s inserts where there's different variations of certain things. Like maybe this. I like the, one of the ways that the 90s experts, Josh, can speak to this. I'm sure one of the ways that they identify the fakes from the reels is by looking at the, the serial number. Oh, the, the number is shifted to the left or it's too close to the slash or it's down or it's a different font. Well, how do we know for certain? And again, just playing devil's advocate, I'm not, I'm not advocating for force calling cards that are considered fake now to be real, but just to. We have to think about all the plausible explanations for things before we just rule against them. So with that context out of the way, how do we know that Even in the 90s, one of the companies, their, their serial number stamping machine didn't get, didn't break and they had to get a new one and now the serial numbers weren't laid down the same way just because it's different. How do we know that that means it's fake now to the Star cards machines used. Maybe the machines wore out. They went to the, they went to the hardware store, bought a new machine and started using that one. How did they chop them up? Great question, Joe. You look at the opici hockey cards and baseball cards. They, they use different blades of different levels of wear throughout the process. How do we know that? I mean, Star wasn't a big manufacturing company that I know of. Maybe it was. But maybe they ran out of ink. One day they went to the ink shop and bought new ink that wasn't the exact same. Maybe they, they ran out of card stock. Maybe they went and bought new card stock that wasn't the exact same. Maybe they use a different. Maybe one day they're using a handheld guillotine, the next time they're using something else to, to cut the cards. All of these things are plausible explanations why there could be different types of these, which also, if that's the fact, which I don't know if even Steve Taft knows that, who's to know what's real and what's fake. It just makes it. And so PSA deciding to grade them, did they consider all of these factors that I just threw out there that I think are reasonable factors to consider? Did they consider these? Did they rule them? Did they consider them and rule them out with either expert testimony or they just decided to because they're a PSA and they wield that power whether we like it or not. So your points are great, Joe, but I think we have to consider not just for Star cards, but for all cards. Why do we just decide that? That the companies use this equipment from. From January to December in their whole production cycle. How do we know that? How do we know that their ink is consistent? How do we know that the card stock is consistent? Hey, guys, remember tops, I think it's the 56. You got the gray backs and you got the white backs, right? Why? Because they ran out of a card stock and had to get another card stock. I think Leaf has similar issues with all the variations of LEAF cards. So just because you see it one way doesn't mean it's that way all the time. So something to consider, David, and to build on that. With these cards being as expensive as they are, it scares me that criminals can put a lot of money to try to replicate this. I know what you're saying, Joe, but to buy one of these kind of older machines and to buy that paper and the ink, which is from the 80s, you know, it's 40 years old. It's not 100 years old. I'm sure it can be found some way. And I'm not trying to help criminals in this way, but I'm just saying that if one of these cards cost six figures, it's not very many that needs to pass for them to be able to make a pretty hefty profit. And it scares me that criminals could have some kind of empire when these. Because these cards are so expensive right now. Right. So I don't. Yes, you might have to get the printer, the colors, things like that. That can all be researched in. In today's world, in today's technology. And. And that's what scares me for the future a little bit. Yeah. I don't think, Joe, I don't think we said anything contrasting what you said, but do you have any response to what my comments are, Davis? And then we'll go to you, Josh. I mean, just sort of what Steve said on the show, which is like that's. That's applicable to any card, right? I mean, not just star. Any card. And. And in some ways I kind of feel like the Star card is a little harder to imitate because it is so as you said, Jeremy, and it maybe depends on your own tastes, but there's a cheapness to the card that I think is. Is both. You might think that's easier to replicate, but I would actually suggest that it might be harder to replicate than a standard, you know, flirting. 86 Jordan. It really comes down to the availability of the card stock in today's card stock market. Right. So yeah, yeah. Josh, what do you think of all this? I think you have to educate yourself and look at cards in their raw form, not in a holder and understand what makes a 48 Leaf original, what makes a 33 Gaudy real. I mean, counterfeits have been going on since card collecting started. You know, there have been fake 52 mantles floating around for 50, 60 years. You know, I wasn't a kid opening those packs. Sorry, David, but I, you know, I wasn't. I'm not that old. But you know, they've been, the fakes have been around forever. He's got to educate yourself and look at cards and hold them and feel them and it sounds crazy. Smell them because they're like cards that are 100 years old smell 100 years old. It's hard to fake that. All right, guys, let's go to some comments that came on that video over on sports cards live from some of the viewers. So I'm going to put them up on the screen. You're not going to be able to see us. You're welcome. Here's. Here's the first one from High Speed card. Chase said of course the 84 star is the rookie car. So this is a bit. Hold on. Before we get it, this comment's a bit different. We, we on the Steve Taft interview, we also talked about which is the Jordan rookie card. So okay, with that out of the way, he says of course the 84 star is the rookie card. The timing of the distribution is far more important than the method of the distribution, which is a way I am certainly leaning as well. He goes on to say the 86 flare only became known as a rookie card because dealer wanted more rookie cards to sell and auction houses wanted more rookie cards to sell and grading companies wanted more rookie cards to grade, etc and consumers went along with it because they wanted to be able to say they owned the rookie card. They all benefited from FLIR being much more plentiful than the Star. You know what, honestly, I don't think I read that that comment in its entirety until right now. And I love, I love that comment. I think he makes a lot of really interesting points there about how this is a very self serving industry when you are at the industry and you are in the industry of making money off of cards in the hobby. So keep these in mind guys, I'll come over, we'll come to each of you after we go through all these comments. So keep your take notes if you need to fellas, because we're going to go through some different topics in these comments. On the one topic. Here's the next one. Game Time Gallery says fascinating and confusing at the same time. I thought Steve was originally Talking about the Star 101 cards as being Type 1 and Type 2, but sounds like for the Star 101 it's only Type 1 and counterfeits that exit and no counterfeits that exist, I think, or maybe and counterfeits, but there's no type 2. So that comment he makes because in the discussion I had in my mind I was asking him about the Star101 card, the MJ and Steve went on for a while talking about counterfeits and then said, no, no, this has nothing to do with Star101. He's talking about other years of Star cards, which was a little bit of a. I was like, oh okay, that was a little bit deflating because I'm like, I thought we were talking about the 101. But anyway, that's that comment. And then right here, Jay Juliano, who also DM'd me, says Taft is making revisionist history. Go get the damn FBI files. Stop making it up. So that's pretty aggressive comment here from Jay, who is accusing Steve Taft of making up his own version of the history and then telling us to go get the damn FBI files. Which I, I mean lucky for me, I do have the FBI on speed dial, so I should have those before the show's over. Stop making it up. And then I'm kidding. But thanks to Jay for the comment. Then Earl Wellington says, that's what's wrong with this hobby. Just admit it. There's no difference between type 1 and type 2 printed on the same printer and same material. No matter what year, it's the same card. And then we got Blue Dumb responds and says, I think you didn't listen closely enough. There are differences in cropping, color, bleed and the offset. They are different. So some disagreement there about the versions, the, the types of Star cards, which I think don't apply to the for to the 84s. Is my sort of understanding. But this is a very complex situation. And then Bludum says, no, they are different. And I do recall those comments about the color bleed and the cropping the Steve Taft made, which I think. And again, that original commenter never responded. So maybe he realized that he was just wrong. So those are some of the comments there. But the, the key there, the rookie card discussion we don't need to get into. That's a whole other thing. But this FBI comment by Jay Juliano who also sent me a DM talking a bit more about it, which I can go look and kind of just. Let me just go take a quick peek here and see more about it. He. He said, he said, yeah, we should probably talk about this type 1 and type 2 nonsense. I'm happy to debate it all. I have notes after talking with the FBI, Steve Taft does not. We've spoken in the past about him. He was not involved with Sally Grace. Go find her book. I was the person that showed the cards in the early 1990s and talked to the FBI. Feel free to call me. We met at the National Cheers J and then he says, he goes on to say on Steve's watch he graded the in quotes, best of the best. I don't know what that is. Is that a star MJ card? Maybe Joe's out. Yeah. Guy. Just not if it is. Just not if it is. Yeah. Thank you. And then he says. So he says on Steve's watch he graded the best of the best in a Shawnico BGS Holder. A shonko S C H O N C O BGS Holder while working with BGS as a grading consultant. He left that out, it seems. So I don't know exactly what that all means, but it's very accusational towards Steve Taft and. But listen, that's information there that I think is worthy of discussing. So I just don't know what it means by a show of hands. Josh, Joe, David, does anyone know what that's all, what that's all about? Josh, can you jump in and comment? No, you don't know what it's about. Joe, any idea what we're talking about here? Well, it gets to the part that Steve talked about during the show that the, the reason that there's not a whole lot of counter. The counterfeiters didn't necessarily go after the 101. They ended up just creating new cards that never were licensed and intended to be kind of put into bags. I don't really know what Steve's involvement with that is. I I have no information on that, but I do know that there's a best of the new and then the best of the best. And so the best of the best is the. I believe the more fraudulent is the fraudulent one, whereas the best of the new is legit. And it's those kind of confusions that created a lot of misgivings about any grading company jumping into these because, you know, just it. I think they looked at it as a liability. So I, I have some best of the best lying around ungraded. I have a Best of the new Jordan that I got out of an old SCD label and transferred into a BGS label. And it was authentic, altered. I've never had a Star card. I've had many, many Star cards and G holders and SCD holders, Sports Collectors Digest. I've never had one not be authentic. I have had them come back altered for trimming. Even the trimming, though sometimes BGS will label something as altered or trimmed and it's not actually trimmed. And PSA will go ahead and give it a numerical grade because there's a lot of inaccuracies in the cuts. So it's just, It's a very complex ecosystem. But I, and I. And it may be that Steve was involved in some degree of helping out some of these other sets because I think they were utilized and, or created in some instances in the same time and context of the original Star production. So it, It. It gets a little vertiginous. I'll. I'll just leave it at that. Well, with all that. And the thing that sticks out to me is that the best of the best is a Unlike is a. Is just a complete fraud. It is not a card that Star ever made. It was a card that was made by Counterf, as if it was an original Star card. And then what this person, Jay Juliano, who messaged me, is basically saying, and I guess somewhat accusing, that Steve Taft, when he was consulting bgs, saw like now, not that he. I don't think he said that. That he said it was on his watch, which doesn't mean that he saw this best of the best, but on his watch as he was consulting bgs, which I think is. Is a far. What I think is drawing at straws there a little bit to pin this on Steve. He may. Who knows if he was. Was he heading up the grading department of BGS when one of the, One of the graders slabbed a best of the best when they shouldn't have? I don't think that's fair to Pin that on Steve. But we don't. I also don't know the situation. Again, whenever we look at anything. Well, whenever I look at any like situation that, that, that, that has some hair on it like this, you have to look at all plausible explanations and not just assume that one is that, that, that, that the, that the. Even Oakum's razor sort of law doesn't always apply. It's. That is not a law that always applies. It just simply isn't. Just simply isn't. Otherwise innocent people would never go to jail. And they do go to jail sometimes. I think it probably. Josh, do innocent people ever go. Have. Let me rephrase. Josh, has an innocent person ever gone to jail? I'm sure they have. Okay, so it doesn't always apply. The simplest explanation is not always the reason. There could be other things going on, especially. Listen, this is a world where, where money motivates fraud. And that's a, That's a situation where, you know, you got to just think about other things. And not everybody is guilty all the time, but there are. So anyway, I think the thing that I take out of that the most is that the best of the best wasn't even a real star card. But, but, but counterfeiters made it one and even some of those got into slabs. So really interesting stuff. Anyone have anything else to say about that topic at all? No? Okay. Man, these sports cards, clubhouse. The. The brass is going to be very mad at you for doing such a long episode. Look, look how excited Josh is. I'm. I'm as excited as he is. I'm excited. I thought Jay Lee was the brass.