Uncle Terry In The Hot Seat? Season 6 Ep. 2

Hello, and welcome to the Ball Card Show, the esports podcast for the Esports Collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary Lomaster. And this is season six, episode two. Winter 2.0 in Ohio has officially struck. We had our first fake spring. We're about to have another one tomorrow. Well, for a day. And then I think it goes back to the 20s and to 12. It goes back to 12. Ohio is weather schizophrenia in a nutshell. Yeah, it's pretty goofy. Before we go any further, I want to give a shout out real quick. I forgot to even mention this to you. I'm repping elite sport cards out of Beckley, West Virginia. Beckley, West Virginia's finest elite sports cards. He walked up to me at the Xenia show like a year ago. Hey, I thought about doing a business. I stumbled onto your podcast. The last time I talked to him, he walks up. This is not me saying us. This is not a me thing. This is just so cool. Yeah. He walks up to me at that same show a few months back. He's like, hey, I already sold out. It was like nine thirty or ten. Here's a hat. It's already Miami Dolphins color. So I just got to pay some respect there. We're cheering anybody and everybody on. If we've been a resource, that's awesome. But I was just so cool. Like, hey, I'm getting really into this. I've been doing this for a while. I like your content. And then a couple months later, he's talking about selling out and giving us merch, which, by the way, we need to make. We do have people. Yeah, we do. Asking for us to do that. But shout out these sports cards. Beckley, West Virginia's finest. If you're in that area, sell your cards to him. And there's no better feeling than knowing that at least in some small part, something you said or did made somebody take action and then they saw success from it. That's why we do this. Like, yeah, it really those those comments, those messages. When you come up and say hi to us at a show, it means a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it does mean a lot to us. It actually does. It is the reason that we do this. Believe it or not, monetized podcasts only work if people give you money financially. So we're not in that situation. We really are trying to build value. Now, this year I would anticipate and something's wrong if we don't see any. There's going to be some brand partnerships. But part of the challenge of being brutally honest is you can only partner with people that you actually recommend. So, yeah, when stuff's consolidated, it makes things pretty interesting. But that's definitely a goal for us this year. So if you're sitting on money, look for somebody in the space that keeps it honest to promote you. Hit us up. Hit us up. All right. Let's move forward. I want to talk a little bit about last week and do a little bit of show and tell if that's all right, Gary. Sure. For you. Yeah. Gary was set up at a show, a greenie show just east of Cleveland, right? Just a little bit northeast by. Yeah, Kirtland. You can't go too much farther north of Cleveland because of the lake. Yeah. It just kind of comes up at an angle. It does. You're right. You're right. It is northeast, technically. Technically speaking. And then I was just walking a local show here, sourcing some stuff. But I thought we could show like maybe once a week, once every couple of weeks, we could show a couple of cards we picked up a little show and tell. Yeah. I'll start off with a PC card and then I'll let you go with yours. This is 2014 Topps Tribute. Eric Davis on card auto number 250. I love the earlier tribute stuff. This is not the first logo. Those of you that remember, it was a font with a face up around that. But 2014 Topps Tribute. Eric Davis is my guy. I'll remind you. I've still never seen anybody that can hold a bat that low to load the swing and maintain power. It's insane how quick his hands were. But Eric Davis to 50. What you got, Gary? I guess I'll start with my first one because it was my favorite. It's not the most valuable I was going to show off. No PC pickups for me because nobody had any Luke Keighley or Ken Anderson or Ed Oliver. Shocker. I know. But the first year Topps Gallery stained glass, Randy Moss. Really, really, really cool piece. I love that set. Those sets are awesome. Well, another set that we talked a little bit about that we wish Panini would have decided to do before is Silhouette. Picked up a really cool LeBron James die cut to 25 out of the Silhouette. It's a cracked ice. Really cool piece. Only one sale of the card ever was a PSA 10. And then last but not least, might be my favorite one outside of the Moss 2007 co-signers. That is Steven Jackson and Sean Alexander dual sign, but it's numbered. To twenty five, which is a really, really, really cool piece. Yeah, I got one more as I'm wrapping up here. Two thousand tops allegiance. Jim Tomey refractor. These are numbered to one hundred. I believe the last time the soul was twenty twenty three for one hundred and seventy dollars. Somebody worked out a really great deal with me and they were willing to sell it right now. Here's the question. We have a lot of Cleveland collectors on our whatnot stream, but typically this would be an eBay card. This is a tricky one. So we'll see. I'll present the idea and see what kind of interest there is. I like but like I see the look on your face, Gary. You're going to lose. You're going to lose. You're going to lose. I know. But how cool would this be for one of our regulars to get this card? But that's a card. If I'm you and we talk about this a lot, we're not big graders. It's not what we do from a business standpoint. That is a card that if it's clean, if I thought it was at least an eight, I would have a really hard time. It's nice. Not send it at all. It's pretty clean. The multiplier on a date up on that card is astronomical. Like if it were to Jim, it's a monster. Probably one of the get out of that attend. That particular card's got to be a top 10 Tomy card outside of his PMGs. Like it's a tops product. I'd say it's every bit of a 800 to a thousand dollar card in a gym. Yeah, that's a big number. Yeah, that's a big multiplier off of a one seven. I think in an eight, it's a three hundred and fifty to four hundred dollar card. A card ladder thinks that it is worth about two hundred right now. Just yeah, raw, raw, raw. Yeah. As I'm saying, so in an eight, three fifty ish, a nine is going to be six, five. Also, modern people have no clue what you're talking about, right? Yeah, no, that's on this type of stuff. It ain't the same, boys. It ain't the same. Yeah. Happy to pick those up. Not happy to talk about how popular TCG and non sport continues to grow, but it is what it is. I told you earlier, like at this point, there's no more denying it. There's no thinking this is a blip on the radar. This non sport TCG market in the collectible space is only growing and there's only more resources going into it. And you were excited about one that I rolled my eyes at for 20 seconds. I'll give you the floor. You big nerd. Well, I'm excited for it because of how culturally relevant the product is going to be. Much like the Spongebob release that dropped this summer, that blasters are still through the roof. They're up to 120 bucks a piece. If you can find them, um, upper deck announced that they have, uh, signed the license for the Harry Potter universe. Uh, first release is going to be the, in 2026, uh, they announced a lot of autographs and numbered stuff and Chrome inserts and, and all the cool stuff that you expect from old school upper deck, uh, insert going to be pouring into this product, uh, love it, hate it, whatever. It's going to be a big release. It really, really is. Um, they even talked about cause upper deck does still own the Fleer licenses as well. So, uh, they're even talking about doing like a Fleer metal, like a metal universe release of it too. It, it's not going to be a slow product to move. I don't think at all. I think there's going to be a huge, huge demand for it. I don't disagree. I know you hate it. Well, it's like, uh, as a product of like my, I was born mid eighties, but I'm a nineties kid. Right. So sure. I remember the hype over every franchise of a movie or book series or like where it was like all the products for everything. And most of that fizzled out. The difference is Harry Potter is an other worldly brand at a level that nobody has seen with books and movies. So no, for sure. I apologize. Piper is wanting to be in my lap. Piper's my dog. Um, she's wanting to be in my lap while we record this and she's 80 pounds. So that doesn't work very well. So I'm having to shove her away. Um, the, the, the reality of any of that type of stuff, just like SpongeBob, there's a whole generation of kids who are adults now who absolutely love Harry Potter, who will devour the product when it comes out. Um, and in the overall, like you said, when we started this conversation about this, like where it shows almost every single week, sometimes twice in a week set up. And every week there are more and more non-sport and TCG dealers that are set up. Um, there is some overlap in that Venn diagram. Like there's a little bit, but it's not a massive overlap of people who collect both. Yeah, but it's there. And if you are looking for what I'm not, because I can't hold any more info in my brain, but if you're looking for ways to diversify a little bit in your card business, it's not the worst. And the one thing I will say is this and I've seen it with my own eyes, the buyers on TCG stuff and on non-sport stuff are a lot easier to deal with sometimes than the buyers in the sports card world. They're not arguing over prices. They're not trying to hit you at 70%. If you've got a hundred dollar tag on a card and they liked the card, they might offer you a 95, but most of the time they're just going to say, I'll take that one. I'll take that one. I'll take that one. Well, yes, they haven't been hit with the softening market yet if they're new to this game. So they haven't experienced that first, you know, there's a reasons there's a reason the COVID crowd tries that 70% stuff. They, they rode that wave, right? They've been there. I mean, you're talking about a franchise that you got, you got star Wars would probably be like on the Mount Rushmore there where they've been able to just do products like that. Harry Potter is definitely up there. Do you see, or can you think of any other brands of non-sport, maybe it's a movie or a book series or something that could get that kind of traction? We saw what doesn't work. Like a dune does not have a legacy despite the book series being wildly popular. Right? Great example of another product that's coming this year. Um, much like the SpongeBob release last year, tops Chrome is doing a Pokemon release. It's not the game, but in 2000 there was a tops Chrome Pokemon release. There's going to be another one, just the characters and it's going to be massive. Like it's going to be impossible to get your hands on. The prices are going to go through the roof. Um, when it comes to other franchises like franchises like that, I think most of them are already out there. Marvel does really, really well in the Chrome products and in the Sapphire products. Um, we're getting the Harry Potter stuff is huge. Disney stuff does massive numbers. SpongeBob was a hit. So if it's, if it's a culturally relevant thing that captured the imagination of a generation for five, six, eight, 10 years or longer, and somebody makes a card set of it, there's a pretty good chance it's going to be a hit. Yeah. I'm waiting for like the, uh, the, uh, Will Ferrell like chronology product to drop that I want. I want stepbrothers. I want John C. Reilly autos. I want, or, or like just that era of like Adam Sandler, like, uh, you know, happy Madison productions product would be huge because of the, the, the guest list that they would have if they could get the autos in there. Yeah. Fanatics is talking about making a bigger play no doubt and getting a piece of this pie. Of course they want to, they have the leverage to be able to. The question is what, what do they go about? What do they go after? Acquiring something that's more expensive than it's ever been or finding stuff that doesn't have, you know, a market yet. In my opinion, there's, there's two ways they can go about it. The acquiring part will be difficult because if they want to acquire one of the really established TCG is, um, that have a big player base. Cause the one thing that, that, you know, those of us that buy and sell this stuff, uh, to try to make some money, don't think about is on the TCG side of things. People actually play with their carts. Like it's a game, like a big chunk of the collectors. Yes. They play with a chunk of collectors that will never play the game. But correct. A hundred percent. There's a base that will exist forever because the game is being played. Magic the gathering has been around for 30 some odd years and over the last two or three years it has seen another explosion on the collector side of things. But it's been around for 30 some years because there are people who play the game and who go buy the packs and build their decks and play the game. Um, fanatics can either try to acquire something like that, which I think would be shockingly expensive. I think it would cost them more than the sports licenses did considerably more. Yeah. Um, or they can try, they have the resources to do it. The question is they would have to make something that people like and that didn't feel like just being done for commercial purposes. Uh, they could try to make their own. They could try to find an existing anime franchise that hasn't been turned into a, an actual game yet. And then hire game designers to build a functional fun, easy to pick up, but complicated game. And then, and it's harder to do it with this type of a series. Like I'm thinking through it. Like I remember it wasn't there, Indiana Jones cards. I mean, it was during the junk wax era. There was like, there's been different brands that have tried this, that had leverage. You really got to, it's something that there has to be a lot more that goes into this, determining the market base and what they like this with sports. It's actually simple. It's actually simple. And I'm surprised that you aren't the one saying it, but I'm going to. You know why the Indiana Jones series cards never became a big thing? Oh boy. Because the people who really enjoy Indiana Jones, and I'm one of the people who fall on the other side of this, those people aren't giant nerds. The people who really get into Pokemon, they're big nerds. I was getting ready to say, I like Indiana Jones! The people who get into SpongeBob, we're really big nerds. When I was much younger, I haven't for years, but even up until when Isaiah was a teenager, I played Magic with them. Harrison Ford reminds the collectors of someone who was a starter on the football team and shoved them into a locker. Except on the Star Wars side of things, because the people who love Star Wars are big nerds. So it's the brand itself. The brand needs to be consistent. It's a brand that's consistent with a group of people, because nerds collect things. By the way, anyone thinking we're saying we are not nerds? Big nerd! Giant nerd! I'm just a cool one. But nerds collect things. The casual consumer, like if somebody made a die-hard card set, ain't nobody buying that. Nobody's buying that. They'd chase an auto, but it's not going to do what this Harry Potter stuff will do. There aren't going to be any good Bruce Willis autos anytime soon. Yeah, I'm not touching that. He's just in really bad health. He can't sign anything. Yeah, he can't do that. That's awful. No, I wasn't saying that you couldn't do it. That was my point. Let's change the subject. Next few things that we have coming up show-wise, I'm going to give you a little bit of a schedule. On the 24th, we have not yet established what we're doing. We will be doing something. We'll probably throw something on socials for that. The week after that, nope. This week, we have Eastgate Cincinnati. Eastgate Mall. That's a good show. It's big. It's packed. It's sold out. It's actually two days this weekend. We'll only be there for one day of it, but it is a two-day show this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Okay. Then we have the following week. We'll definitely pick something up. There's a possibility we're back in Cincinnati. We're looking at a couple options. The following weekend, some big shows. Ohio State card show that Greeny is putting on. We've got three tables there. Then the next day will be Grove City Card Fest that Brad Beeman puts on. Fantastic show as well. They've expanded. They have a second gym. They're actually separating out the TCG from the sports stuff, but trying to expand that so there's more of everything. Be sure to check that as well. Definitely some ways to participate in this. I'm really excited about two things that we have coming up here in just a moment. Absolutely. Up first, we interviewed Keith Newhart from Newhart Cards. If you're looking him up on socials, it's at the Newhart Cards, like the ball card show, like the Ohio State University. Poor one out for our boys after that. Playoff loss. Keith did a fantastic job with the interview. One thing that we noticed in the comments was there were a lot of people asking questions and having dialogue around wanting more perspective from shop owners. We asked Keith if he'd be willing to participate in something. It's going to be evolving as we go, but a regular touch point where you can ask questions to shop owners and we can get you honest, direct answers because Keith doesn't lie. He's a very honest person. One of the things that's important to us about building our brand is that we partner with people we trust. I'm excited to bring to you our very first ever segment of Shop Talk. We are live from Newhart Cards in Delaware, Ohio with the one and only Keith. What's up, Keith? Hey, welcome back. Glad to be here. I've made no bones about it. This is my spot. Keith and I like to pop in on a regular basis. We had a fun interview last week. In 2026, we want to do something really fun called Shop Talk. We got a lot of feedback. Keith, you were a popular man. I appreciate it. I like to be honest and not bash companies or other shops or whatever. Let's keep it positive. Nothing but hobby positivity on the Ball Card Show. That's what we're known for, actually. Yes, you are. What I want to do is it's just going to be those of you listening, you can ask questions. Shoot stuff in. What do you want to hear from a shop owner? Today, I want to talk about new collectors, Keith. Absolutely. It's 2026. Everybody just got those Christmas presents. No doubt, there's a wave of new collectors or people coming back into the hobby. Absolutely. What is your sage advice for them? What are some things they should be considering? We just got through Christmas. We just got through the holidays. Tons and tons of new collectors coming in. We see it every single year. We always say pump the brakes a little bit. A lot of people come in and they're like, I got to buy all this stuff. I got to buy hobby. Give me a flawless box and this and that. Then three months later, the money's gone. All they have is a pile of cards. I'm giving you $800 for this stuff. They're out. They're gone. Just pump the brakes a little bit. Maybe buy some retail. Don't forget about singles as well. That's the market. Obviously, if we don't open product, we're going to get singles. Buy something you like. Let's start with that first. If somebody has a lower budget, but they want something that's a hobby product, what's something that you would say, hey, these may be a couple to consider? Absolutely. Leaf is a love or a hate. The names you can hit out of leaf products for $100, $120, $140, you can't go wrong. You're getting Hall of Famers. You're getting Number One Picks. You're getting Jaden Daniels. You're getting all those guys for a pretty cheap amount. I would go with something like that or a Score. A Score, you're guaranteed three, four autos a box. Great NIL checklist, Jeremiah Smith and Arch Manning and those guys. You can get into the hobby products at a decent amount. You just have to not go overboard right when you're first getting back into it. They love it and they're like, what's the best stuff? What products when it comes to the higher end would you say, if I had to say this is a pretty good value for what it is, here's what I'd take a look at. There's a lot of great baseball products out right now. Baseball is usually a cyclical kind of a product where we forget about it in November, December, January, but not this year. Baseball's been popular throughout the whole year. Your Heritage Baseball, it's a great set builder's product. You also get a hit. Bowman, every Bowman product, every Topps Chrome product, so there's a lot of really good value baseball plays right now, so I like that. Football, there's always again, you have Flawless all the way down to Leaf or Wild Card and everywhere in between. We sell a ton of stuff like Rookies and Stars, a couple hundred bucks a box. Certified's been around since the late 90s, great product, a couple hundred bucks four hits, so there's lots and lots of stuff in any price range. When people have been into this for two or three months and they're like, okay, I have all these cards but I don't want to keep all of them, what's the role of the LCS in that? You talked about it in the interview, bring liquidity to the space, what does that mean for a client? So basically our big word is liquidity. You come into the shop, you have a two row, first question we ask every single time, do you have a price on the whole thing, do you want to sell it all? These are your cards, you tell us what you want to do. I'll take them all, more than likely, but do you want to sell one or two cards, do you want to sell the whole thing? And then what do you want to do with that? We treat cash and trade basically as exactly the same, so if we offer you $200, we'll give you $200 or you can pick from anything in here, whatever you want to do. So we want you to continue buying, selling, trading, staying in the hobby. This is something you can do from the time you're three to the time we meet our maker. Anywhere in between, so it's a great hobby to be in. Awesome. Any last thoughts on this one before we wrap up our first of many Shop Talks with Keith Neubauer? Absolutely. Don't forget about singles. Everybody, when they get back into it, is always I want to buy, I want to buy, I want to buy, I want to rip, give me prism, give me select. Don't forget about singles. If you're an Ohio State fan, there are hundreds of Ohio State players that you can buy for $10. Don't forget about that. If you're a Joe Burrow fan, you can get Joe Burrow rookies from $3 all the way up. Don't forget about the singles. Buy what you like. As we're wrapping up, I just encourage all of you to remember if you're new to this space, even a shop owner saying, don't overdo it. Enjoy the hobby, jump right in, but make sure you have a plan to be able to enjoy this more than three months down the road. I was expecting him fully to be like, this is NT, this is flawless, this is Tops Chrome Cosmic if you like baseball. He was super practical, like, hey, don't start too big. Here's some stuff that's affordable where you can get a feel for what's going on. I love that he said, don't sleep on singles. That makes my heart pitter-patter. Thank you, Keith, for that. If you have questions for Keith for Shop Talk, drop them in the comments. We'll be viewing those on a regular basis. We'd love for that to be a weekly segment covering a very specific topic, but we thought, hey, there's new people getting into the space in 2026. Let's see what Keith has to suggest for them. Another big thing that we are very excited for, we'll jump to in just a moment, Uncle Terry. I don't know if you saw it. He's pretty worked up about GameStop. He's had stuff that he's trying to submit with them for a long time, way longer than he thinks he should have to wait. Uncle T's a patient man, but he can only take so much. We asked him if he could jump in. Gary, what did he say? If he'd jump in for an interview? Yeah. He wasn't quite sure how the technology of it would work. I tried to tell him, and then I just told Duncan, hey, just go set it up and sit him down in front of the camera, and we'll figure it out from there. Yeah, seeing him with a modern set of headphones on over that beautiful lettuce is really going to be something. It's something. We're so excited to bring you Uncle Terry to the show. Real interview. Honest takes. Everybody welcome in Uncle T. Ladies and gentlemen, it took three weeks with a lot of instructions on how to turn on a webcam, but live at the Ball Card Show right now, north of the border, Uncle Terry is in the building. Can you hear me out there, bud? I am. Do you hear me? Okay. What's that now? There might be a little bit of a lag. Just let me finish, and then can you hear okay, Uncle T? I can hear you loud and clear, bud. I'm wearing these headphones here, and you know, in radio stations, they call these cans. Yeah. Cool. Nice set of cans right there. That's right. That's a rock and roll fact for you Ohio boys. Take that one to their conversations. Will do, Uncle T. Are you ready to talk a little bit of shop? Because we've got a couple questions for you. Oh, I cannot wait, bud. Here ain't nothing I love more than talking about cards with my nephews here. You bring your questions to me, bud, because I'm sitting here every damn day wondering, is anyone gonna hear my damn opinions on this? I'm one of the damn old school damn collectors here, bud. That is a fact. And honestly, I saw early on when we first were looking at like, Uncle T turned a camera on. I remember going through some old sets, explaining to people, like, they don't realize how dangerous getting an IP auto is. There's risk involved. So, like, you've been introducing some ideas into the space here, reminding people this isn't a brand new hobby. This has been around a minute. Oh, that's right, bud. This is an old hobby and once upon a time, a much grimier hobby. It's all polished up now, and that's fine, bud, but these autographs, before they get those back in the day, those card shows were wild, bud. I bet they were, Uncle T. Alright, let me start out with a question I have for you. I know you had a little bit of a rant about this a month ago. Has GameStop even given you your PSA submissions back? What's going on with this? I'm not trying to make you upset, Uncle. Bud, I'm past upset here. I don't know what to do. I'm fed up with GameStop. I drive up there almost on a daily basis. I'm going in there and I don't mean to harass nobody in there. I'm just rotting my damn PSA submissions and they are still keeping us on the back burner out there in those GameStops, bud. They're out there. They got their video games in their hands. They don't want the cards. They're damn dealing with the video games, and so here we are sitting here cardless. How long has it been? We're going on months here, bud. Many moons. I'm talking I've gone through many solstices at this point. We're through the seasons. I give my cards to the GameStop. I don't know if they're ever coming back to me, bud. I'm just feeding a machine there and that evil machine is the GameStop. And that evil machine is run by different people every time you're there. Do they even know what your cards are? They don't know what they're handling, bud. I'm in there with treasures. I keep my cards in a wooden box so you know they're expensive. And I unlock them with a special key I forged myself and I open it up and I give them to them and they throw them in some slop cardboard box never to be seen again, bud. I'm about to become a damn vigilante at the GameStop. That's why they call it the GameStop. Your cards, oh, they stop there. I guess I never even considered that it's right there in the name. They're telling you there, bud. You bring them in here and Oh, stop, you're never getting them back. What'd you drop off? Was it like some Otani, Drake May, the big names? What are you, what are you submitting these days? Oh, bud, I had a damn shoeless Joe from the back of an old cigarette pack that I don't think anyone's ever seen before. And I thought, well, this is garbage. And I said, you send that into PSA right there. Now, what do I got to do, bud? What do I got to do to get their respect? Pack it in with a Mario? With a damn, you like the Zeldas? I don't know what to do. I thought shoeless Joe Jackson had as much damn respect as Mario and Luigi. Strange times we're in. I've got some expansive cards to put in there. We're talking Wilt Chamberlain cards, Llewells Cinder cards. I'm talking Elgin Baylors. They're looking at me thinking, are these from the world of the Warcraft gods of the Kings? Yeah, it's getting the hell out of here. They don't know what they're doing at the GameStop. Well, well, Uncle T, I have to give you a little bit of an update because I'm not sure, and I don't know if this has happened in north of the border of the great state of Ohio, but down here, GameStops are starting to close up left and right, and I'm going to be honest, I didn't hear a word about this until you dropped your video a month and a half ago. Are you? Do you know? Wow, but well, I don't know if it took a true hero to finally speak up, but maybe I was the one doing the speaking here, and that's that's news to me. But I'm not surprised, bud. They start closing down. That's a damn revolution. Someone behind the scenes has figured out, oh, I didn't get my cards back. I'm pulling the leases on these buildings here. You never know who's a card collector out there. Landlords. Plenty more, plenty more where that came from with GameStop, Uncle T, but is OK if I switch subjects on you? I don't want to if you have more to share. But I mean, you're saying it with your chest. We're here, but I'm saying it now. I hope they shape up, love to have a cohesive unit with GameStop. Let's bring the card world in the game world finally together. But it starts with the trust of you handling our damn cards to GameStop. That's all I'll say there. Couldn't set it any better. Myself, Uncle T. You saw me lock my fingers. I did see that. That's that in the camera. I hope that's right. That is that is a wall of trust. That is a wall of trust. That's GameStop. And that's the card collectors. And you fit them together just like that. Yeah, it's it's a great visualization. That's trying to let you see a visual of unity. But and I want you boys or I can see moved by. Yeah, good. I'm right here. I'm touched deeply. Maybe we should all start walking up to the GameStop register. See, that's right. That's an experience. Look at that. I'm I'm fingers are old enough yet, Jason. You're wrinkly. Jimmy Dean's that just right. We need to develop a secret handshake with GameStop to get our cards back. This can be it. Let's start walking into GameStop saying shake my hand. We just got to make sure everybody's nails are appropriately trimmed. Otherwise, that could get dangerous. That's right, bud. That's nothing. That's like the video game cartridge fitting into the Nintendo. Give it a little first. Yep. And that was efficient, though. Yes, it worked. But I'm the one who invented that damn thing for you boys. I tried blowing like that across my kid's face when I act stupid, but it doesn't work. And I don't work on these kids no more. Nothing registers in these kids today. All right, Uncle T, I got to change the subject here, if that's all right. Sure, sure. You go ahead. And it's not something that I'm comfortable doing, but I love Yonk. And when when you love your family, sometimes you just got to be honest with them. Even if it's not, you taught us that. I mean, you. You say you'd say if a bully's bothering you, right? That's right. You know, just punch him in the nose as hard as you can. But be honest about it. Don't like I said, that's right. Like I said earlier, but if you see a truth, you speak the truth. No, you don't. You raise us like that. Every summer at car shows, we get out the big Buick. You know, I remember it. You remember Seals and Croft just blaring. Oh, we're ears. Yeah. And it was beyond. So I got to be honest with you, Uncle T. Um, we we've said that if we see something happen, the hobby that could be manipulation, that we would talk about it. And I was watching your stream the other night and I started getting some messages and you were ripping packs. And don't get upset with me, Uncle T. I'm just man. Gary, you remember this look? Yeah, well, and I hear you, but to Jason sent me a text about this. And I started running the the odds a little bit. You pulled from 1991 Desert Storm hobby boxes. In the same box, a Colin Powell and a Saddam Hussein, and. It really reminded me of the breaker this last week that pulled three MLB debut patches in the same case. The odds are. A million to one, there is a million to one against that, that's even possible. The real. Are you getting loaded Desert Shield boxes? I mean, where are you, where are you getting this stuff from? Because it doesn't make sense. Well, we love you, Uncle T. I just. I am going to say this about you two, first and foremost, I'm proud of you. I'm proud that both of you finally stood up to the old Uncle Terry. Now, the next thing I'm going to say to the both of you is how damn dare you boys accuse me of that? Who's damn telling you out there? I'm telling you out there, that's what I'm telling you. It's just math, Uncle T. Math? Damn you, Gary. How dare you run numbers against your own Uncle Terry? You boys promised to never use math against your Uncle Terry in your lives. And you broke that trust today. Oh, I like I told you boys earlier, this hobby used to be much more grimy. And if you can't stand the damn grime, go take a damn shower. That's what I'm going to tell you. Things are complicated out here in the card world. You didn't answer our question, Uncle T. What? Let's just say this. OK, I'm going to say I saw some WCW packs. I saw some Dick Tracy cards. I saw six Jessica Rabbits pop out of one pack. And guess what? That's Roger Rabbit. So that's not even the right product. So I need to understand. Just talk to us. Sure, there's a way forward here. There is a way forward, but let's get through this. Let's cut down these trees and walk through this jungle for a clear path here. I'm going to tell the both of you right now. How about we chalk it up to the fact that I'm one of the damn original old school collectors in this damn sport. Like I said at the damn beginning of this conversation. So why don't we chalk up my damn good luck to them? Collector's luck. How about that, boys? How about we just call it that? How about you want to run numbers? How about I've been collecting for damn decades upon decades and my numbers are finally running up. I've been down here and now I'm going up and I'm going to get them accused by my own nephews about juicing packs. How dare you? Some of those packs are for you, boys. When I die. I didn't I didn't think about that part of me, and I didn't think about it, Gary. There is a will written on a napkin inside my dresser drawer top shelf. You in there, you're both in there. There's a couple packs, juice packs for both of you. OK, I just want to remind Gary. Gary brought up the desert shield. I talked about GameStop. I'm just hey, I'm here. If you wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't don't throw me under the bus. Gary was the one that's like, no, no, no, no, no. We need to tell you if we'll do an interview. Here's what Gary said. And I quote and I quote. Unk's not getting any younger. That was the first thing he said, wow, wow. There is none of this happening right now. There is none of this. We're talking about the will here, dude. Oh, so so when when desert shield packs are involved, friendship out the window. We're just throwing people under the bus. That's what's happening. This is family, family. See what's happened to us. You see what's happened, you start digging under things you're not supposed to dig, and we start fighting amongst each other. It's best to just let things lie, boys, let the people talk. Boys, don't uncover those boxes. Don't damn break open those damn cards to find out what's behind there because you won't like what you find. That's all I'm saying. Are you understanding what I'm saying out there? Gary, do you understand what I'm saying? Gary, do you hear what he's saying? Why do you keep asking me? Because I'm not sure you hear what the man's saying. I absolutely hear what the man said. You're the one that said he would do this every summer. Well, we came up there to hang out and play. He's tattletaling. He's starting these little you're the worst. You're the worst. This is what would happen. I drive you boys all the way up to Michigan. You'd fight and fight. And I'd have to turn all the way back and drive south. And God knows how many hours made it more than a day. We never made it more than a day. Oh, I knew by Sandusky, Ohio. I'm I'm going to see you in a couple hours again. They're fighting nonstop about these cards. Sure. Well, I love both of you boys. We love you, too, Uncle T. Right here. Hey, this is you, too, right there and right there. Like. We're done talking about it because you said you don't want to talk about it anymore. Best to let things lie. But if somebody wanted to see some of those packs. Do you remember there's an application? Like, I don't know if you know, I know. I know Duncan is on top of it, but you're on this application. Do you remember that? He's like, this is called an application. I'm going to turn this on and then you're going to sell packs in front of the cellular phone. He's just pointing his phone at you once a week. Sure. No. Yeah. On the cell phone. OK, I know what you're talking about. He's recording on there. Yeah. If people want to see what's in the vault. What? Where do they follow you? I mean, do I need to ask Duncan or I don't know if Duncan told you or. Well, I believe it's called Uncle Terry's vault. You know, you boys were always calling my damn cards in my damn basement. I just fall. So I said, call it Uncle Terry's vault. It's cool, bud. And so we go on a thing there called what now? OK, it's called what now? And you go on there and we'll sell you cards on there. And they say boys are in there in those jet rooms, live talking to each other. But Joe, it gets cool in there. All right. I feel like Gary and I have some unresolved work here left. Sure. I know you're a busy man. You got a lot of other appointments today, things that you have to manage, players you got to talk to, all that stuff being in this space. But we appreciate you taking the time to answer some questions. I hope I hope Gary wasn't too mean. Um, but we we love you and we appreciate you. Take him off the napkin, Uncle T. This is ridiculous. I know you two are always in the area. You know, I love you, but these I love you, too. Hey, I'm proud of the both of you. You're down there in Ohio and you're damn dominant in that card world. And I'm proud of the both of you. As long as you two, you stick together. It's like one time off all three of us. Even if it's going, we're lacking it. And there we are. That's all of us together. And in the card world. That's great. Thanks, Uncle T. We'll see you again soon. Love you, boys. Thanks, Uncle T. And Jason, you and I have some things to work through. That's all I'm going to say. I just speak the truth in love, my friend. That's all it is. You threw me under the bus. I don't hear you. Threw me under the bus. You back the bus. You back the bus up three or four times and drove it over me. So I'm just saying, yeah, yeah. Anyways, anyways, go ahead. We wanted to jump into a conversation here. Little bit of meat and potatoes. Well, again, practical stuff is what we're we're here for. One of the things that we're seeing happen more and more is the grading companies, PSA specifically, but every grading company, to some extent, they're getting more and more flooded and more and more inundated with submissions. And your turnaround times are getting longer and longer to the point where the market outside of the goats, the market is going to have shifted dramatically by the time you get the cards back that you said, hoping to make a profit on. So as grading becomes less and less tenable as an option for profit. fit in this space as a dealer or even as somebody just trying to fund the hobby for themselves. We wanted to talk about what a world would look like if that wasn't part of your business model. And lucky for you guys, you got two people here who already live there for the most part. I think I graded six cards last year. Did you grade any? I didn't send any off last year, not even group subbed. Yeah. So between the two of us, we sent one card every two months and it was all me. So we're already there. So Jason, let's kind of talk about the pitfalls of grading being the prime. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who have done really well with the model of buy raw, pay strong, grade it, make my money on the come up in the grade. But when you're doing that with the grading term being six months down the road, ask people who have stacks of PSA 10 Kobe White rookies what that looked like eight months after they sent them. What's interesting about this too is the scenario Gary just pointed out of people that pay strong and send it off and they flip and get the grade. People that do that have a high gem rate. They're successful with it. There's another group of people that even though it sounds more risky because you're paying up for the player's market, it is more risk averse. And those people are ones that decided a couple of years ago, I'm only buying graded and I'm only buying PSA. They actually were trying to avoid risk in doing that with their businesses. They were saying if this is the established value, if the PSA 10 of this card is the top of market, why would I introduce the risk of sourcing items that may not be a nine and nine and raw and what do we do with that? And should there be a, and so they just said, that's it. I'm buying PSA slaps or SGC or Beckett or here's the three or Hey, this repacker only one season. So I'm only buying this and flipping for them. Right. But what's happened is as the competitors are being swallowed up by collectors and we have this really long wait, now it's becoming a little trickier. Obviously you have what's already circulated in the market. There's still hundreds of thousands of cards on a regular basis circulating, but now you have direct buying from companies, which leaves less singles out in the ether in the, well in the ether they're there, but out in the shows at the table in circulation, especially the brand new stuff, especially Drake may better ball out through the playoffs or some of y'all are stuck. Well, we see the movie, I see the movie every year, but we've seen this happen before. So all that to say is some of you are even in this spot and you weren't trying to be in the spot. You were trying to be more careful. And one of the things that happens in this space is the market changes. And one of the ways it could change is the grading turnaround times. So what I'd like to do then is Gary, let's kick back and forth. What are some things to consider if somebody is only bought graded or they were depending on being able to get to sound, they have an existing business and now they're like, what does this nine month turnaround mean for me? Because I can't, I can't extract what I need quickly enough for this. If I just keep buying and waiting eight months for this to pick up. Yeah. Um, our, the way we approach it in our business is, is really simple. We let somebody else deal with that problem. We buy raw, we sell raw. Um, we also buy graded and sell graded, but we don't tend to do is send a bunch of stuff off and keep our fingers crossed. Um, when grading was a two or three month turnaround time a year ago, it wasn't so bad because you could start that process and send 20 or 25 cards every single month. And within three months you've got a steady flow of stuff coming. But when it's to eight, nine months, six, seven months, who knows? Um, the six, seven, uh, the, uh, when it gets to that point, you're parking money in a speculative market where there's a very good chance that that stuff's going to drop. Now, if all you're sending is vintage, if all you're sending is goats, okay, you know, this doesn't really apply to you, but if you're sending the Drake maze or the Tyler shucks or, uh, the Tet McMillan's or the Travion Henderson's, like if you're sending that stuff, um, you're sending the Paul skeins, you're, let me, let me say this a little more clearly exactly what you're saying, but it's very blunt. Yeah. The low end base PSA, 10 rookie market is trash. It is dead until PSA can get stuff back quicker. Yeah. And the products will release two, three months later. Yes. And now I'm looking at a five star auto, a dynasty auto, uh, not getting grading costs back planetary pursuit Pluto. If that's still a planet or whatever, like those base, there was a hustle of all the Drake may prison bases are out. I'm going to send them off. I'm going to get them back in two months. We'll be halfway into the football season. It's still a speculation and a risk, but now you've eliminated that possibility because what's available in raw is going to make that PSA 10 base almost undesirable for a lot of collectors. The stuff isn't even selling for grading costs. Like you can go buy a Trevor Lawrence, PSA, 10 select a rookie for 15, 18, 20 bucks. It's going to cost you every bit of 30 by the time you have shipping involved to grade it. So, so we're focusing in on raw then. And we're telling people, we're speaking from experience. If you're stressed out about this as a dealer, maybe nothing more than just some encouragement. Listen, you don't need it. Promise you don't. Your business does it. You think you may feel overwhelmed with it. How am I going to buy having this? You just do it. You try. You look for more examples of comps. It's going to take you a little bit longer to comp on raw. If you've been used to just scanning stuff and you build relationships and you take the time to actually go work and dig. I showed you guys this card earlier. This is a card that has sold one time in 12 years. It's a cool card though. And if you go dig and work for it and find it, you're going to be able to find that and get it at a price that makes sense for your business. It's not easy. It's way easier. It's way easier just to grab slabs or whatever else, but you're introducing way more risk into your business than you have to. Here's where I think there's some positive outcomes from it. If you're somebody that's always bought slabs and now you're wondering what am I going to do? You can still buy the slabs that are out there. I'm just saying for this, 2026 is going to be weird where you have new releases. And even more important, I just now thought about this. What are the new releases? Tops Chrome across all three. Tops Chrome football might have a year long. There's some weird stuff and we are in unprecedented territory where we don't have legitimate competitors that can provide that liquidity until people are willing to pay PSA 10 prices on CGC or TAG or whatever. And that clearly isn't happening yet. It's clearly not happening. So don't be afraid of the raw. One of the little tips I would give people is if you're really grade focused, quality focused, then I would say take a closer look at your RPAs, your thick cards, your patch cards, some of those trues. Buy the vertical. If it's a vertical horizontal, buy the one that could have a little bit more value raw. And is it really clean? The reason I would say that as an example is most people assume an eight or a nine on those types of cards because they're tough grades. So you may mitigate a little bit of risk off of a $500 raw that you're just not sure about the surface on compared to a nice RPA that's raw that is probably an eight or a nine, which is what is expected in the market for the most part. It's really rare for a thick RPA to be sent off into 10. It's possible, but it's unlikely. And you're probably not scaling your business on that possibility with RPAs. No. And one of the other things that you say a lot Jason, and this is really true, as you're looking at all these things and how they impact your business and grading ultra modern stuff is becoming almost untenable. I would really encourage you to, if all you do is ultra modern, pick another era and diversify into it. Jason has a really good saying when it comes to vintage and what we call modern, like mid nineties to mid two thousands. That stuff has a range. Ultra modern has a price. There's a lot of space in the sandbox to play with the older stuff because it's condition sensitive. It doesn't sell very often. There's not as much of it available. So you have a lot more leeway in how you choose to price it. That's been something I've really been thinking about a lot lately because I see people paying strong for collectible pieces, end user, really cool PC cards that have value and they don't seem to regret those purchases. And the cost don't matter as much. They're more guidelines than they are exacts, right? Yeah. Well, I just saw a star quest gold. It's called the root quest. So it's a dual card front and back. Dion Sanders, Charles Woodson, number two, a hundred. Yep. It's sold like three or four times ever. The last sale was a PSA six that did 200 bucks last year. I just saw it sell for a thousand dollars. Snap sell within four minutes of being posted in a Facebook group. Yeah, I've got a, I showed, I told you about it. The, uh, I don't think it's up here in front or I grab it. The Bowman, the Bowman gold trout paper rookie, they're a little bit thicker stock edges on that are pretty cooked. But if you look at a six and you'll have like a sixes and sevens and nines and eights that sell, like there is a wider range. Some of you haven't had to dig and scroll through and look at a couple of years of data, but you might be surprised. The seven might sell for one 35, but the last three might be one 50 or it might be 100. Yeah, but I can actually look at that card. That's a little beat. It's probably a seven or eight and I can look off of the six and present that idea. There, there are cards where it's not 10 or nothing, right? This is what we want to encourage you with. If you've been playing that game, just find a space. Try this out. Take time comping, spend four hours at a box at an LCS. And if you only come away with three cards, but you comped 500, I'm telling you that was worth every second of your time to learn that market. Because the next time you see a great deal, it's going to walk up to your table and you're going to say, what do you want for it? You never know what that number is, but this is an area where your expertise will help you out a lot. So I guess just a word of encouragement from Gary and I that if you're feeling a little trapped or frustrated by this grading situation, there's people that just love cards out there. There's lots of them. There's people that flip cards and they're not bothered by raw. There are repackers that are only going to want the greatest stuff and they'll be really specific. And Gary, you mentioned there's even some arbitrage opportunities there for you. Yeah. And we can, we'll talk about that more in depth later. I know we're kind of up against it right now in this episode from a time standpoint, but yeah, there are, there's more platforms out there than just eBay. And there are arbitrage opportunities if you know what you're looking for. That's why learning this stuff, taking the time and really diving into it can be very rewarding. It's also intimidating. I get it. There's a lot of information. I don't know how I hold as much of it in my head as I do, but it's a lot. But once you figure it out, it is a big head. Once you figure it out though, that's when those opportunities really start to open up. And start by just picking one lane. Maybe your lane is weird random 80s baseball stuff, 1984 California highway patrol cards. Pick one lane, learn as much as you can about it, and then just scout the different platforms for those opportunities. You'll be shocked how many times you'll find a card that sells on eBay for a hundred bucks for $6 on ComSee or for $10 on Collex or on MyCardPost or wherever. There's tons of platforms. Pick a lane, learn as much as you can about it, and then go treasure hunting. You'll find treasure. I promise. Yep. I guess one of the things that we're trying to say here is- Love is blind. Yeah. PSA would never wait on you. So why are you waiting on PSA to make you successful? Yeah. PSA is a tool for your business. Grading is a tool. And there are a lot of people wildly more successful than us that don't even bother with it. And so that's just an encouragement. I know people are feeling stuff. You go into a new year like, how am I going to do this? You're looking at everything. You're doing your taxes. Those business owners that are feeling it here, we're with you. We're in the grind with you. Keep going. Don't worry about it. There'll be a new grading companies. There'll be new brand deals. Just stick in your lane and keep going. That's my little encouragement for everybody today. Keep swimming. Keep swimming. Quick reminder before we head out of here, we are on whatnot at least three times a week anymore, sometimes more. So be sure to check the ball card show out on that. We are flirting around with the idea of live selling on TikTok as well, where a lot of you have found us. And then as always, these new episodes drop at noon. Be sure to give us a like and follow. We're close to some monetization goals on our platform. Crazy that we're saying that a year later. We'd love to hit those. So we appreciate all the support. And if you have questions for Keith or Uncle T or us, shoot us messages. We do our best to get back to you quickly. Anything else you could think of? No, I think there's only one thing left to say. This has been the Ball Card Show, the eSports podcast for the eSports collector. Bye now. Peace.