What Makes a Great Card Room!! w/ Tony - Southern Collector!!

Welcome to the Golden Age of Cardboard podcast where we remember a time when stacks of cards were held together with rubber bands and Mickey Mantles were put in bike spokes. We hope you will enjoy and reminisce as you come along with us as we tell stories about the baseball cards from the golden age of baseball. We will examine the state of the vintage baseball card market and talk to some of the greatest collectors in the hobby. You won't be hearing us talk about any chrome or shiny cards here. Now, to take you on this retrospective journey, here's your host, direct from the shallow end of the gene pool, my son, Mike Moynihan. Yo. And hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Golden Age Cardboard podcast. I'm your host, Mike Moynihan, and I am glad to be with you guys again from a new location, a new, new recording studio, so to speak, a new card room. And I am thrilled that this is my first episode here. And guess what we're going to be talking about today. Card rooms and designing a card room and what it takes and what everybody needs, and they're all going to be unique. But, you know, this is a fulfillment of a dream for me to have a space here that fits my collection, that allows me to display so many things. And I'm just really thrilled to have it finally. And my wife is thrilled with the new house. Like, you know, there are gives and takes with things. I now have a really long commute to work, but that's okay. That's worth it to be where we are and. And have what we have. So what I'm going to do is, you know, not be alone. That wouldn't be any fun today because we're going to talk card room stuff. And there's a friend of mine that has a relatively new card room as well. You guys all know him. It's Tony Southern collector in his new card room. What's up, Tony? Hey, Mike. How are you, buddy? I'm on cloud nine. You know, it's been two weeks and I since I've had the card stuff here and adjustments are being made and tweaks are happening, and it's just fun. Yeah, it's great. How long have you been in yours? Well, you know, we moved in here in November, but, you know, the cabinets were here. You actually sat in here. And by the way, here in your intro now has all new meaning for me. After meeting your dad, your dad stood right here where I'm sitting, actually sitting his chair and hearing his voice now, you know, I Have this mental image of him saying the intro. So. So anyhow, so, yeah, you were here, but I have everything set up. And I had just moved my cards from my old house over here. And so you never saw the finished product, but you've actually been in the room, so it's not that big a room, but. But, man, it's. It's like my man cave. It's my happy place and. And love being in here and. Yeah, I love it. What was the stress level when you moved your collection? Because I'll talk about mine, but I want to hear your story first. Like when you moved stuff from old house to new house. Was there. How did that work? What'd you do? Well, I don't have the collection you do. So I think I had like six Zion boxes and then some. A couple. I can't remember what they're called. The cardboard boxes that are made to stand the cards up. Yeah, yeah, they. They have all of my childhood collection in there. And so, man, I mean, I could fit it all in the suburban really easily. And just. And we. We moved down the street. We're in the same neighborhood. We're not like what you were. So the stress level on me was not that high. What. You know, the biggest thing with me, because Since I do YouTube, I did not want to do my card video, my card room video, until I had everything exactly how I wanted it. And. And that. And, you know, that was my choice. I see some of my friends, they do a video showing them painting the walls and a video of them showing, hey, look what I did today. I didn't want to do that. And that. That doesn't mean they're wrong. I just wanted to get it all done and do one video. And it was an hour long, so, you know, it was all encompassing. So, yeah, those are my favorite videos to watch of other people. Because it's gives me ideas. It gets me thinking, okay, I'm going to incorporate that. Or no, I don't think I like that. Not that it's bad for people to do whatever they do in their room. It just may not be right for me. Right. So my stress level was through the roof, I bet. And it was. We did it all in one day. I had packed months of packing, you know, occasionally, okay, let me clean out this. Let me pack these away. And I had boxes all set, tubs ready, and I had a few, you know, things that, okay, we cannot lose these. These boxes cannot get lost. Like, no matter what they went, you know, in the cab of the U Haul with me. Just things that like, okay, I'd really be devastated if I lost this. And truth be told, I thought. I mean, everything got here great and I. I didn't have just cards. I had furniture and I had shelving and I had, you know, neon signs and all kinds of stuff, pictures, you know, that I had to get here. So it was more than just cards, you know, in boxes of cards or binders or whatever. But I have 100 and 130 binders around me. Yeah, all they all had to get, you know, it was a lot. A 20 foot U haul and three pickup trucks is what we took to get here. That's incredible. Then once, once we got here, it was. Luckily we have a really big living room. And so it's like, okay, get everything in there. And then the process was from there. Once it was all there, let's. Okay, let's put these. Let's kind of go back to the front of the room and let's get that shelf in. Let's get the beast in. Let's get. You know, and you had to like the beast. I had to remove every single drawer because it's too heavy otherwise in my life. I know. You know, and so anyway, it was stressful. There was a point that first day I couldn't find something really important. And then today, ironically, today we're recording this on a Sunday. This will air on Wednesday. But this morning I was looking for a Sandy Koufax Perez Steel that I have, and it's in a Beckett slab. And so I couldn't find it anywhere. And I knew it was in a box with a whole lot of other stuff and I was freaking out. And I go to church, you know, I look everywhere for it and it can only be so many places, right? It's either in this room or in the closet or it's not here and I can't find it. And so I am freaking out. It had my cash and Ruth, my cash and Garrig, my Kareem Rookie in a seven, my Sonnella, Ruth. Like all these big cards. They're all my tall boy stuff. It was in a little tub. I'm in church, you know, trying not to think about cards during church. That's never good. And. But I was stressing going, where on earth could it be? I. I don't even remember seeing it since. Since we moved out of the old house, so. Yikes. You right, you know, and you're going, it's like 20 grand. Oh, yeah. I'm just like, Julie, I don't do. Have you seen this box anywhere? Like, does it ring a bell? No. So I get home and I go, okay, there's one tub that I didn't dig all the way to the bottom, too. And I was like, okay, I'll look at that when I get home. Sure enough, in the bottom of that was this tub that has cowboys in it. And crisis averted. It was shocking how flipped my attitude turned towards the whole day. Yeah. Finding that box and. But amazing. Everything's here. Everything made it. I didn't. Nothing broke, Nothing. You know, I've been able to add so many things on the walls that had never been able to be shown. So it was. You know, I'm very happy now, and I'm especially happy today. There's a major difference between what you did and what I did. So. And let me explain it like this. Yeah, you already had a card room. It might have been smaller, but you had one. So you had furniture. You had the beast. You did have stuff on the wall, even though you added a few things. And I had nothing. I didn't have a card room. I was in my bonus room. I had stuff in a safe, and I had some, you know, some zion boxes with stuff in it hidden away underneath a bed or something. Now I got a big safe in here, you know, and. But anyways, I. It's kind of like when you first get married and. Or you first buy a house. If you've never had a house, all your belongings fit inside a suburban, you know, and you just get there and you buy some stuff and you set it up. That's where I was in my card room experience. You weren't. You had lived in your house for 20 years, and you were moving all your stuff that you had accumulated to a new house. I was moving into a house I'd never owned, so it just made it easier. So would that be your response? It was easier. And what went into the thought process of designing your room for your collection? How did that go about. Well, what I wanted first and foremost was my own space, because in my old house, I was in a bonus room. And when I wanted to do a YouTube episode, I would have to hang a comforter over the door of the bonus room because there wasn't a door there, so my wife could watch TV downstairs and the sound wouldn't filter in. So I wanted my own space. And there was a bedroom upstairs that was the smallest bedroom in the house, but it fits my needs perfectly. And in fact, I got a picture of it right here. Let Me show you. In fact, if anybody wants to watch the whole episode, I'm sure you can tag that. But. But, yeah, there it is. That. That was the bedroom. This was the little boy's room before we bought the house. So you can see the two windows. So I'm a cabinet maker, as you know. I mean, I know you know that, but people listening may not. And your son even moved to Tennessee to come work for me. So I'm pretty good at designing cabinets. So I tried to figure out when you design cabinets in any house, whether it's a kitchen bookcase, you're designing around wall space, windows. And then in kitchens, you're also around sinks and appliances. I didn't have that. So I had to add the wall space and had the windows, and I had to figure out the best way to do that. Well, the way I laid it out to me made all the sense in the world. It gave me a nice backdrop right here for my videos. And so that was it. I needed my own space, and I need to make sure it was designed in a way that would hold my collection and showcase it. Because ultimately, this room, to me, is my personal museum. And I want to know where my stuff is. And based off of what I collect, I wanted. I wanted all the different lanes of my collection to have their own spot, you know, And I'm sure you've done the same thing, and we may get into that. But anyways, that was. That was it. That was. Those were the main points. So interesting. I. When I designed this, my room is simply a rectangle, and I had the one window and a closet. And so similar to you, I wasn't thinking about cabinets necessarily. It was furniture. And so my daughter, who designed our house, I have talented children that are very crafty, like Palmer. And I have Jessica, or my son Palmer works for you and does cabinets. And my daughter Jessica is a designer. So is mine. We're so similar. We could be brothers. I know. Except the Tennessee thing, I can't. I can't get. No, I'm just kidding. So when we designed this intentionally as a rectangle, I put floor power in the floor in the middle. I didn't know what I was going to do at the time when we were designing the house, I was like, maybe I'll have display cabinets I'll need to plug in. You know, I didn't really know. And then I knew the furniture that I had. And so we made a grid on grid paper of the, you know, to a scale for my room. And then we cut out pieces of each piece of furniture to scale. And then we just started, you know, Jenga ing the whole thing and tetrising it all together and putting the. Okay, could the desk go here? And, you know, okay, this is the centerpiece. Where can it go? And where. Where do we branch off from there? And. And we ended up making it. This final form layout is. Is how we had it in the book, you know, on the grid paper. And it was so much fun to. To try to. It was like a big puzzle, you know, and you're trying to get all the pieces to fit. And at the time I went, I. Or earlier before that, I had decided, okay, I'm not going to do display cases. I'm going to do these drafting cabinets that are behind me, which turned out exactly like I wanted them to. I mean, they are so freaking cool, and they hold a ton of cards and storage. And it's going to be an amazing workspace once I get the walnut on the top of it. And unlike you, you know, I did a card room video already, and then I'm gonna do as I like. When I finish this piece behind me, I'm gonna do another video showcasing that. And. And I will probably go through and do little mini snippet videos of different parts of the card room just to showcase those. Like, I'm planning on going through some drawers of the drafting cabinets. Like, okay, here's what's in these three drawers. You know, these are all XYZ autographs. And. And what's cool, putting the autographs in those. They're hidden all the time, right? They're in darkness, essentially. And then you pull out the drawer and, oh, you know, that's like the angel sing and go, okay, that's pretty cool. And for me, I love that. What I've got in comments on my cardboard video, and I'd love to hear what kind of feedback you got on yours. I heard, Tony, that, man, I have a closet, or I have. I don't have my own space or a lot of lamenting about people's situations. And, you know, when people have to design a card room for the space that they have in the collection that they have, you have to think about both have to play into it. Not everybody is lucky enough to have their own space. We're blessed to have that. But at the same time, I took care to conform that space to my collection, as did you. Right? You personalized it. And so if you have a lot of cards you want to put, like, yours is amazing. Like, your backdrop is just like, Jaw dropping. Truthfully, I wish you could see more detail behind you, but that's impossible. And yeah, it's hard. It's hard, but it's you. We all know the bangers that are behind you. Like, let's be. Well, the difficulty is, you know, I wanted it lit because if it's not lit, it's just kind of boring. So I wanted it lit. Now look, I done messed it up. Me do this over again. So, yeah, I've got the little remote thing, but I have to turn the lights way down when I'm recording. It looks like it's really bright, but it's not because otherwise I think I had it too bright a minute ago. But, but anyways, I wanted you to be able to see it. But. And I wanted it to be a backdrop, but I didn't want it to be overpowering. You know what I mean? But, but it all, it all makes sense to me. And I've got it all designed. And that's my Babe Ruth shelf right over here. I got, I got my Satchel Page, Josh Gibson, I got my Ted Williams over there. I got my Hank Aarons. And then I just got random other stuff, Dobie Jack Jackie, and then I got my Negro League Lane over here. I got my 48 Indians, Monty Irvin, and then my Nashville Collect. So it all makes sense to me. I got my Cracker Jack wall, which I built these cabinets just for that. They're narrow in that way. They're one row. Just like those displays you can buy on Amazon. Yeah. And I did it on both sides. Unbelievable. And so I got my. I'm trying to build the Cracker Jack 15 set. And so I want all those displayed because to me, they're the most beautiful set ever made. So. So when I was in your room, my favorite thing was those displays, the side displays that you just showed. Yeah, I thought that was, I think the customization that can happen. A, You're a cabinet maker and my dad is a. Is an amazing woodworker. So we both at our disposal have the ability to do those things. Yeah. Again, not everybody has that or they buy the wall displays. What I don't like about the store bought, so to speak, wall displays is they're set. You know, you can only have this width or this height and it'll only hold so many cards. And I, I felt that was limiting and so I never wanted. That wasn't ever like have one of those, you know, you were able to custom. That's my favorite thing about your room is that is Those wall, those sidewall panels of cards. What's your favorite thing about my room? I'm fishing for compliments now. So what do you like about my room? What do you like. Oh, in watching your video that island, how he' talked about that draftsman. The drawers. They're the thin drawers that you pull out and all your cards are just laid out and I don't know how many drawers, how that is, was like 10, probably 10 on each side. I have 20. Yeah, what I thought. And you pull it out and there's nothing hidden and they're really deep. And so those Perez steels just laid out beautifully, you know, and you didn't have to. So one of the disadvantages to a bookcase and I, and I'm going to fix that by the way because I, I know how to work with wood. But the front row is all you see because every, there's two other rows behind it and you can't see it unless you walk up on it in this view. But I've tried to stair step some things with putting ball holders and putting cards on top of like square autograph ball holders and stuff like that just to get it different levels. But in the case of your drawers, you pull it out and there they are, dude. And I don't know if you're going to label those or if you just memorized because you don't have to label them if you know, there you go, you got them labeled. So yeah, I mean that's amazing. And when you got. And everybody has different collection sizes. When you got a collection the size of yours, you better have some sort of organizational skills or else you'll never find anything. Suman every. I would say 90 of my collection are on shelves. Now I will say this because I'm on YouTube. I do have some bangers, but another part of my card room is a 400 pound safe that we had to get upstairs. And when this, when we get done airing, all of this goes in the site. Not all of it, but the major. Anything that is very expensive, which is stacks and stacks. And then when I record I got to take them all out again. And so that's at least once a week, sometimes three times a week. But let me tell you what that does for me. It makes me touch them. They're not just stale back there getting dust. And if anybody pays attention to my videos, they would notice the cards are in different spots all the time. It's never in the same place because they're put out every time. But that's. That's a precaution I got to take along with the security system and deadbolts on the card room doors and cameras and guns. Everything else. Dog. Yes, scary, man. When you have this kind of stuff and you're putting it out there for public display. So. But the trade off is I have community and I met people like you by putting myself out there. So it's a good trade off. But that's just one of the downsides of having YouTube and having a card room. So, yeah, I've been in card rooms that are not on public, you know, they're not on social media or anything. And it's pretty insane. And then there's guys like us that say, you know, I don't f. With my collection. I'll just put it that way. You will. You will not be happy. Cameras, guns, dogs, security system. I mean, it's. I take it very seriously, as we should, but I'm not willing to give up the community that we, you know, I'm not. I've been on this for a long time, and it'll, you know, you got to take precautions. It sucks that our world works that way, that we have to, but you do. And I would tell anybody to be smart, you know, I still haven't told him. Nobody knows my address, so. I know. I don't either. I can find out from your son, show up there one day. But, well, you're invited. Like I. You. You gotta come down because you will have a great appreciation, not just for the room, but the. The house and you, you know, done a lot of cool things and what's cool. My favorite thing I just discovered today, Tony. I went out and I mowed my pasture with my tractor. And you get really dusty and dirty, you know, mowing on a big tractor. And I have an outdoor shower. And I took my first outdoor shower, and it was. Oh, wow. It was exquisite. Let me tell you, one of my buddies told me to get one, and I was like, that sounds dumb. And let me tell you, not dumb. Now I live in the country. Nobody's gonna, you know, I can be out there. I was out naked in my bed behind my garage. Nobody's gonna, you know, I'm not worried, but the deer might, you know, get started. But. Well, let me ask you something. What's your favorite part of your room? My favorite part of the room is going to be the workspace that I have. The drafting cabinets as well. Well, you keep saying workspace. What are you going to do there? What. What kind of work will you do in that space, well, that's just where I can pull a box out, sort it. I can pull out a drawer of the Beast and go through it and just use it as essentially a giant work table. Awesome. It is. I put a kick plate under it so I can treat it like a. Like a cabinet, essentially. I built a custom kick plate to put under here. And then on the top is going to be walnut, so it'll look like the Beast. It'll be poly. We're going to poly it and sand it down and make it pretty. And it'll be basically a tabletop on top of here in walnut. And then I'm going to do the sides in a walnut veneer. So, like, this side right here is black. Now it's black metal. Just the metal from the cabinets. It's going to be a walnut veneer just to tie everything in. And I love the color in here. This. That blue is very. It's just nice. Yeah, I did green. Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm also going to do on top of the cabinets is I'm going to plexiglass it, so you're gonna have the wood. And then I'm going to put spacers so that I can fit slabs. Like, my desk right now has cards under it. It's glass with cards. I'm going to be able to put slabs all on that workspace and then plexi over that so that I can have a workspace that has, like, I can change out. Hey, maybe I'll put my 58 tops run in here or whatever and just have stuff all the time on display. Again, the key in my brain, Tony, was how much stuff can I make easily accessible? Whether it's a binder to grab a set, whether it's the display cabinets to pull out, a Beast drawer to grab, whatever the. The most car. I want to have the maximum amount of cards viewable and accessible. They're. You know, I've learned over the years that having a large collection that is sitting in boxes is kind of pointless. It's kind of not fun. And so to me, I like having a large collection to that end, display and make that possible where you can enjoy it and open a drawer, if the drafting cabinets or grab a drawer from the Beast and like, and I have a couch in here now so people can come and sit down and grab a drawer. And that's what people do. They grab a Beast drawer and just start going through it. Yeah. So the only YouTuber that's been here so far is Coupe. He came down for Three days. And we had an absolute blast because we were setting it up, still hanging stuff on the walls and kind of. Oh, what do you think about this? Oh, yeah, that looks good. Or whatever. Yeah, I've got, you know, bobbleheads up there. I've got bobbleheads on each shelf. Like. Yeah, pretty good. Now with yours, your. Your goal was a little different than mine because yours was about storing and storing in a way where you could quickly get to it and then bring it out and look at it and enjoy it and that kind of stuff. Because the just vast size of yours, mine, mine's about display, like, so it's a different way of attacking because you don't really. I'm looking behind you right now. I don't see any cards like display. I see balls. I see awesome artwork. I see the bobbleheads, the neon sign. I know, I love that sign poster. You have the 500 Home Run Club. I've bid on a few of those in auctions and I'd love to have one in here. But then you got a couple of bats. You got some really cool stuff. But your cards are mainly cataloged, whereas mine aren't. They're all right here. Because I don't have the size of collection you do. And I don't have the size room either. So it just goes to show you there is no cookie cutter way of doing it. Yours is awesome. Mine's awesome. And they both have different purposes based off of what our collections are. So I just wanted to point that out. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it. That's a good point. My berg is right here. Display case which does have cards in it. Oh, yeah, that's right. You got that glass thing. The top of the drafting cabinets will have cards showing. So do think about that. You know, the enemy for both of us, because we both love autographs is light. Yeah, right. And I know you have blackout curtains. I've got a blackout curtain on the way. That's not a blackout curtain. That is a thing. I threw up there to shoot this video with my wife. But I got a blackout curtain on the way. And this room's dark, you know, 99 of the time. So I have different light settings I can have in here. So I'm not. People are like, oh, are you worried about light? No, because I don't have light on it very often. And so I'm not worried about that. I do my. These binder shelves that I got, I hit the lottery because I found them perfect where they fit, you know, 14 binders on a Row perfectly. They don't lean over, they don't sag or any of that. That can be a problem for binders. They're held straight up all the time. I am curious how that's going to wear, though, and age that process. So we'll see. I did want them standing up. That was something I decided a long time ago. But we all. You know, you mentioned how we have different collections, same goal, accessibility, viewability. Another word you use to describe what you tried to accomplish in yours was build your own, have your own little mini museum. Yeah, that's what I did, just on a bigger scale. I feel like this is. I wanted to make this a museum. And I got that comment a lot on Mike. It's a little museum. And I'm like, bingo. I nailed it. Then. Then I nailed it, because that's what I was going for. And if people think that viewing it great. Well, there's. There's different types of museums. You know, if you go to the hall of Fame in Cooperstown, what you see up there that's displayed is one thing, but I've heard. I've never been down there. But you can go down in the basement, in the archives, and it's all cataloged away. And apparently what's down there is a thousand times cooler than what they even show. But they know where everything is. And I've heard from some high rollers that have some awesome collections that when they go there, the hall of Fame rolls out the red carpet for them and they're able to see anything they want. They can name things and they'll go get it. And, you know, it's. It's very similar to what you have in your awesome room, man. You got an archive museum, like, killer stuff from all different years, all the hall of Famers, the sign stuff, and everything that you can just. It's at your fingertips. So it may not be hanging on the wall, but it's. It's there and you know exactly where it is. And that's awesome. That is a key, though. You mentioned organization and just you. You know where every card. If I said, show me this, you would be able to put your hands on it very quickly. Shockingly, as big as my collection is, I can do the same thing, other than this box that I couldn't find this morning. But, you know, now I know where it is. So now I'm going to take good care of it and put it where it needs to go. But that is a key to, I think, enjoying your collection is knowing where it is. If it's just chaotic. Right. We're both very organized, and you have to. It's like cleaning your room when you're a kid. I would tell my kids and my parents would tell me, even, hey, clean your room. And then it's easier to keep clean than to clean it. Once it's chaotic. Right. It's more daunting. So I take very good care to keep my room organized all the time so that if something gets out of place, A, I'm aware of it, B, I can fix it. And it's. It's just keeps my OCD in check, too. Yeah. Keep everything organized. And I think a lot of collectors are ocd. Deep down, we have that about us. It's what makes us collectors. So, yeah, I could put my fingers on. If you named a card, I could grab it. Why don't you test me? Let's do it, like, name a slab, and if it's in the Beast, I'll grab it. Let's see, 19. 1970 tops, Tom Seaver. 1970 tops. So I have my card number. So what do you know? Can you look up the card number real fast? Well, I thought. I didn't know I had to do that. I thought that was just part of you finding it. Well, I'm just playing with you in 1970, smart alec. And I'm trying to find Tom Sieber. I think he's later in the set. Pete Rose? No, Bernie Banks. Just Google it. Yeah, I'm trying. Here we go. Well, dang. So that's how I have it organized by years. Okay. I thought you had it alphabetical or something. No, some people do it that way. There's no wrong way to do that. I don't think. So. If some reason it's not. It's not popping up for me, so I get tested instantly. Can't come through for you. Well, I'm sorry. Number 300. I got it. Okay. All right. So see there? You at least knew which drawer it was in. I did. So there's 70 tops. Tom Sieber. There you go. So to be able to do that is so nice. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll put him back in a minute, and he'll go right back in the same spot so that the next time I need my 1970 tops, Tom Seaver, Yahoo. From Tennessee asked me to pull a Tom Seaver from 1970. Well, I mean, you said anything. I did. Yeah. I knew you'd have it, being a hall of famer. Is there. Let me ask you this question. And. And I think this will Resonate with people listening and watching. There's joy into the organization and, and figuring out like for you what's going to go in what cubby and is. Is there joy for that for you? Absolutely. So one of the things that I wanted to make this room not only about cards but about family. So like I've got my daughter's college. She played at FAU down in Boca Raton and got her college softball jersey that's framed up there. I got my sons. You can't see it's on the other wall. Got his high school senior jersey that was framed. I have a poster from Larry Doby Day from the Hinchcliffe Museum in New Jersey that where the Larry Dovey Museum is. They used my video as a teaching tool for all the volunteers that would come and help on, on Larry Doby Day. And she sent me a Larry Doby Day museum poster. And then up here, man, I really like this shelf. That's my childhood card locker up there with the stickers on it from like 1980 in. In. The cards in there are still organized just like they were in 1980. I have not moved them. The only thing I did, I took the hall of Famers out. My. Those three baseballs at the foot of it right there are a no hit ball through in Little League and my first two home runs in Little League. Just really cool stuff. My first card I ever pulled was a 1978 Pete Rose Tops card. And it's not the actual card, but it's. It's right there. I got another jersey and my daughters. And so that is a childhood shelf. And that is, that takes me back to the earliest days of me collecting, you know. And so yeah, I just, I think that's so cool. And then I'm really proud of being from Nashville. So, you know, over here I got all my Nashville stuff and I collect pre war Nashville cards from the T206 set. And the red border said and also the green border, red sun back set. You know, be being from Nashville, we don't have a major league team. So, you know, you don't have what. I mean, the Rangers ain't been there forever, but you grew up with the Rangers. I mean we, we had the Nashville sound. So I got my Don Magley cards over there, the sounds card. You know, I remember watching him in 1981 and that really made me be a Don Mattingly fan as a kid, following him through the majors and where you're gonna have a lot of pride, you're gonna get a kick out of This I have. And I haven't figured out where to put it. Have right here. This is my little league jersey. Look at that. I was number 11, you know, the old senior league. So I was 13 when I wore this. I could. I would. I would be fat man in a little coat if I put this on. But that's my, you know, 13 year old Jersey. And I had. It's like. It's like, like I just came out of the laundry. My mom had preserved it. She gave it to me when I moved. And remember bike the. Oh, yeah, they had the coach shorts. All the coaches wore. Yeah. So, you know, I have this. What do I do with this? I have name plates from my high school jerseys. I have my gloves and little league hats. But you have it all in there. That's what I'm talking about. Yes. Up, up here on that shelf. You can't really see it. It's the one underneath the softball. I got my high school letter up there. I got my old Beckett price guide book that you got every year. My daughter, when she played at fau, it's one of the programs. But I got my Evel Knievel lunchbox up there. And guess what's in there? Just like it was in 1980. My football card collection still in there? I thought you were gonna say a 40 year old peanut butter and jelly sandwich. No, but I mean, that was my second grade lunchbox. Evel Knievel, man. I mean, the lunchbox itself's worth some money, but what's cool is it's still. It's got my 1980 tops football cards in there. The perforated ones. Some of them have been ripped in threes and other ones are still there, unfortunately. I think my cousin stole my Magic Johnson Larry Bird rookie because it ain't in there. But he would have done that when we were 10, so I can forgive him. But because I have my Empire Strikes Back action figure holder. Awesome. In here. And it's got. Well, my action figures in it from when I was a kid. Yeah. Like. And this just sits on a shelf now. But it's cool that we have the space to incorporate, not just. I mean, I got. These are. These big ones are comic book holders. Those are all comic books to incorporate other aspects of our lives. Beyond Museum of Mike. That's right. It's the Museum of Tony. Exactly. It's. You know, nobody else would care about this. I don't care that they would. I didn't do it for them. I did this for me. Right. And so what tips Would you give somebody. Let's, let's do one last segment on tips you would give people if they're building out their own space or they have the opportunity to reconfigure their card room. What would you tell them? Lessons learned. Oh, man, take some time. Like you said, when you cut out everything and made sure how it fit, planning is key. You can't just walk in there and start throwing stuff up. And even if you don't have enough money for, you know, you have enough money to maybe do one wall right now, but you ain't got enough room to do the other two, do the one wall purposely so that when you do the other two, it all makes sense. So plan, plan, plan, plan. That's extremely important. You know, think of how you collect and what, how you're going to do things. So the thing I would add to the planning is do it right the first time. Yeah. Like, it takes longer because you have to save the money to buy the shelves or buy the, build the cabinets or whatever you're doing. Don't rush it. Don't sat. Don't settle for less than you really want. Ultimately, it's better to take longer to do it. Shoot, it took me 20 years to get here just from one house to the other. And if you go back and watch my first card room video, it was all done as well as I could do it in the moment given money, budgets and all the things. Right. So. But do the parts of it that you love right the first time. Don't skimp because you want to, you know, do this or that. If you want the really nice displays, buy one and then save up the money to buy the next one or whatever you're going to do. Don't, you know, don't sell yourself. Don't sell your collection and your museum that you're going to create for yourself short by taking the easy road, because that's all I can afford. Well, then wait then be patient because that's. I think that planning part is key, like you said, Tony. Well, me and you are in the same boat. You know, we're empty nesters. So there's a lot of people raising families right now and they don't have a spare bedroom. And that's cool. If your wife lets you have one corner of the den and you can put one of those cases, you get it Amazon like we talked about. And then you put your cards in there, that's cool too. You know, that's not really a card room, but that's what makes you Happy for now. You know, use what you got the best you can to, you know, make you happy in the moment. But ultimately, if you get a card room, that's when it changes. That's what we're talking about right now when you get a room. Plan, plan, plan, plan. You know, from everything to your lighting. You know, I went with Finra Fenway Green on my walls. I've been to Fenway park several times. Love it. It's one of the historic stadiums, but I like how it really popped with my cards, and it's a calming color. So, you know, all the way from the way I. I painted in again, I have a interior designer for daughter, so she helped me with the lighting and everything, so. And all the way down to your desk. Like, I love my desk. It's got a. A leather top inlay on it. So when I take pictures of my stuff, it doesn't have a glare popping up at my. You know, in my camera. It's really dull. And I like that. You know, I thought that was cool she thought of that. So anyhow, yeah, just playing. And the devil is in the details. Yeah. All of this is done very purpose. Mine is done very purposefully, very intentionally. And. Okay, where is this gonna go? Where is this, like, literally up to where my bobblehead's gonna go, where, you know, little stuff. I did kind of do the wall configuration of all my. I just laid out all my pictures. I said, all right, I want all of these for sure. Where should they go? And that's what Coop was. Here. We were doing that. And that was a lot of fun to kind of think through that with him, you know, having someone else. I don't know that I always have the best ideas, so I'm willing to listen and again, watch other people and. And get ideas from them. I'm trying to think. I've stolen a lot of things from other collectors. The. The binder shelves, you know, geez, Mikey and Pepino, man, they have, you know, those binder shelves. And I'm like, oh, I would love that someday. And that's not for everybody. There are plenty of guys that aren't set collectors and don't care at all about that. Okay, great. Not. Not a big deal. I. I think one thing you and I would want to tell everybody is, you know, whatever you have, make the most of it. Right? You don't have. Tony and I are in different stages of life than everybody else. And you may. Like you said, you may have families and responsibilities and stuff. Those always come first, as they have for both of us. But when you get the. When you get the card room, be intentional, like I said, man. What else do you want to cover? Do we have any other topics you want to talk about? Psa, man. What about them? Shut. No, I'm just joking. I am so glad I don't. Nobody's talked about that. Yeah. I mean, what's going on? Just kidding. This is way more fun to talk about than that. Oh, man. Yeah. So. Well, are you gonna come here soon, I hope. Yes, I will get down there. I want to come to the Dallas card show, and I know you said you're pretty far away from that, but it'll give me something. I mean, look, it'd be two days in your room and still not see everything. So, you know, it's. You're. You've got a destination spot. I want to stay in that little. What'd you call it? That little detached thing with it. Yeah, dude, I'd love to stay in there. That would be awesome. Just. You want me to. You have five other bedrooms here to stay in, so there's plenty of room for you, your wife, whoever all wants to come down. Man, thanks for doing this with me. Thanks for being on my, you know, relaunch of the podcast. I guess I'm excited to kind of get back in a rhythm of doing content again. And thanks for being the first guy to come back on. Oh, man, it's my pleasure. Look, that podcast was the original content that I consumed when I came back in the hobby. I didn't know you from Adam, but, man, it was consistent. It was on Apple podcast, and I'd walk the dog. Let me see if I can find one today. And I. I go back three years and listen to the one you did about the gouty cards or something, you know, and I was just. Just soaking in the stuff, man. Soaking in the wisdom that you had, and. And, man, I made all the difference in the world for my collecting journey, so it's pretty cool to be on this show. No doubt about it. So. Well, you're. I guess you're welcome is all I'll say. And thank you for the compliment. And it's cool to hear that from especially people that I love and respect like you so much and. And anyone truly, that says they've learned something from the podcast over the years, because it's been now six years that I've been doing the podcast, which is kind of nuts. And. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. Well, guys, hopefully you learned something from this episode. If you have questions. Put them down below in YouTube. Ask us questions, me and Tony. And we'll. We'll answer them the best we can. And thank you guys for watching. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you guys soon for another episode of Golden Age of Cardboard. Have a good one and keep collecting. See ya.