Grading 101: What Separates a 10 from an 8 with the World’s Best Grader | Mike Baker

The counterfeiting's, that's not the problem, the problem is, you know, alterations relative to trimming and shaping corners and things like that. That's more nuanced. That's where the experience and judgment call kind of comes into play. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing trails or calling bluffs, you take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Allford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network. I'm back with one of my good buddies, you know how much I, you guys know how good I talk about Mike and Mike Bakers. So nice to join us here again as our official, the official professional world's greatest greater of Collector Nation. Mike, I just gave you a new title. I love it. Thanks for having me as always. Mike Baker authenticated MBA grading up and coming, grading company, though he is world renowned greater and XPSA badass. So, hey, I'm just coming up with all of them now, Mike, but hey, are you, I know I'm the marketing guy and I add all these titles to you. But are you the world's greatest greater? That's a matter of opinion. I'm just going to call on the opinions out there. I mean, does anyone have more experience grading than you? As a professional grader, I probably not know. So, I mean, I think like we've talked in the past or whatever, like the superpowers that I go to trade shows, I'm at the booth, I talk, you know, I'm. Articulating where I'm coming from relative to why the car got what it received grade wise. So, if there's anything that kind of makes it like more compelling is the fact that I'm just more accessible. Yes, well, that's for sure. I mean, honestly, are there any other, they haven't hit my radar. Are there any other graders that are sort of personal brands? They all just kind of want to hide behind the, I mean, that get it. It's not, it's a tough spot. I mean, you own the company. So, you're out in front plus you do the, you know, I know you have a team now helping, but it is kind of a fine balance. I guess there is that, you know, that is, that's the word too. It's the fine balance. You know, the optics on having a greater be accessible and then, you know, talking to submitters and all that. It's, there is definitely a fine line. I can just tell you that the cards, the card, we grade what we see. And if people have questions as to why the card received the grade that it received, that's where I'll come in and tighten it up. So, that's, that's a super bar. I just love that again, accessibility is a good word. You know, what you're doing with, hey, you know, come online. I'll do a digital analysis, give you an idea of where you'd be for a very reasonable fee. So, you don't have to play the guessing game. You know, you, you answer DMs and texts and, you know, I'm not just for me, of course for me. But, but I know you do it for everyone. You know, I like to pretend I'm special. But I am special because Mike was so gracious and so authentic in coming to the grand opening collector station. I want to give him a props and thank yous here live on the air. For that, I really meant a lot, Mike. I mean, having you here. And, you know, just spending, I know that time, money, energy, the effort, all that. And I love you for that, brother. Back at you, man, strategic partnerships or that's what's all about. Yeah, man. And look, it's, I'll say this. I've, you know, owned the shop. You know, feels like two years, but I think officially two months open. A soft opening, two months and a month and a half. I don't know if weeks were running together. The official grand opening week. The amount of people, Mike, that walk in and the third thing they, well, the first thing to say is, you know, how much is this or that? You know, hey, like cool spotter, you know, small talk. The third thing is, do you offer grading services or what do you think? I mean, grading is like the third, like third thing out of their mouth with every other person that walks in. It is just the topic in the hobby now. Well, the, the awareness gap is definitely narrow. People are more educated about, you know, why grading is so important. And making sure that the cards, you know, real. It's, you know, it hasn't been played with. It's, it's on a, it's special in terms of the grade that it receives. It becomes even more special for receiving NBA diamond. There's, you know, all that kind of, I was, you know, I was in an elevator and a little kid. I think I talked to the last show, you know, like, like a little seven year old kid was talking about grading. We run off to get what the grading service should I use. And it's like, wow, that's, you know, it's, it's great. Everyone's got a lot more leap from the days gone past where a lot of the education about grading was doing it in person. Do you know, there was no internet and there was no way to like make it kind of international. And now it's like, you know, we're talking to guys as all the grading services. I'm sure they are talking with people from all over all across the world. So that's, that's, it's awesome. Yeah, man. And it sort of makes sense. I don't know. Part of me is like, when I came back in the hobby, I was like, wow, grading's gotten more important. And I was like, well, you know, but then I started to think about it. And I'm like, you know, what also has gotten more, you've got AI and really good printers at home that can fake the shit out of stuff. So, like, the games are big. Yeah. And you got, he's the cardboard with tens of thousands, if not millions of dollars, or heck, even when it's $500, depending on your scale. You have someone mess around with it. Yeah. In fact, it's the lower value stuff you really kind of watch off for because everyone's targeting the bigger ones. But the guys that are, you know, playing around with the $50 to $100 cards, you know, those, you just, you can't take it for granted. Yeah, look at the card and the value doesn't play into the, to the grading aspects, you know. I literally had a guy yesterday, Mike, another shop that's in North Carolina, North Carolina guy and a friend's with. Good guy. And he just sent me a text. He said, hey, man, look out. There's a guy peddling fake downtowns of Jackson, Dart and somebody else. He said, just F.O.I. And I mean, have you ever been sent a fake card, Mike? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, lots of fake cards. Yeah. In fact, when I first started at PSA, that was kind of like my lane was, you know, trying to be ahead of the curve relative to counterfeits and identification of new ones coming out of the market. And the great thing about the internet now, you have guys that have platforms that specialize in this stuff too. So we're talking about who's the best grader or whatever. There are guys that specialize in certain lanes that are really, really good. And, you know, one of the cool things about our community hobby, whatever is that they share. You know, no one wants to see somebody get burned in a hobby where you're spending your discretionary income on stuff you have a passion for and then get burned like a downtown, you know, Jackson, Dart card. That would suck, you know. So it's up to us in the community at large to look out for each other and, you know, share it when you have it. Have you seen some pretty good ones? Oh, yeah. Really good ones. The vintage more, the vintage cards in terms of, you know, counterfeits are much easier to spot because it's the card stock that's impossible to replicate. But they get, they put brown sugar and throw them in an oven and try to tone them and kind of throw them in a basement and kind of get that, you know, that vintage smell and look and all that. Yeah, exactly. You're kind of, you know, 20 minutes of the oven, you'd be surprised what they look like, you know. But the, the modern cards are ones you got to watch out for because the technology and the, and there is no paper. It's all plastic, you know, so it's different, different resins and plastics that are making the cards and that's what makes, that's what makes it more challenging. How often now with, you know, Mike Baker authenticated NBA diamonds getting busier. Are you seeing fakes? Not, not many, you know, I mean, the, it's like kind of, you know, PSA would definitely be seeing the bigger because there's the market volume. Yeah, the volume. I mean, they did, I looked at the gem rate numbers that were released for March and they did over 2 million cards in a month. That's just unbelievable. Yeah. So it's a one a month, maybe, whatever couple months for you. Yeah, maybe like one a month that we'll see, like kind of like what the heck, kind of stuff, you know. Yeah. It's the counterfeiting's, that's not the problem. The problem is, you know, alterations relative to trimming and shaping corners and things like that. That's more nuanced because you'll get a card that measures, but it doesn't have factory strations on the side when you're looking at it. You can kind of tell like a nail file or something's kind of honed in the corner to make it look a little, little tighter or better. And that's, that's where the experience and judgment call kind of comes into play. So how do you feel about people that, like clean up their cards before sitting for grading? Is that, is that perfectly okay? I get it. No, putting paint on it or something. I'm not saying that. I'm not talking about what a used car does to the cars on the lot. Well, it used to be like really frowned on. And now you see it when you go to shows, you'll see booths that are set up specifically to handle it. And they've got their branded with gradient services in terms of, you know, the prep for going to wiping fingerprints and whatever. I mean, generally the rule for us is that we agree what we see. You know, I mean, if it smells like bleach, then I'm not going to go. You know, so if someone's putting some additive on it that can be identified, then that's adding something that shouldn't be on the card. But if it's something that you can't identify and you're like throwing darts trying to figure out what's been done, you're going to, do you want to have a line? So you just have to grade what you see, take a deep breath, you know, and do your best, basically. So instead of the standard, would you advise people? I mean, hey, you grade what you see. So clean those cards up before you obviously don't add chemicals and do things. But if there's a fingerprint on the card, I mean, that's going to impact the grade. If it can be wiped without damaging the card, you know, and you're not going to be able to see it as a grader. You know, I mean, if it's done right and, you know, a fingerprint pops off a chrome card, it's like, what are you going to do? So it's not, that's not a big deal. You have to be careful doing that, though, too, because if you don't have a, you know, a microfiber towel or some type of whatever you're using, if has any type of contaminants on it, you can scratch the card, too. They're very temperamental. So you want to be careful. So like having to go to someone that knows that they're doing probably isn't a bad idea if you're going to go that route. My wife would say that they're a lot like me, my temperamental. Yeah, you know what I put that on me and not on her, you know, like I've been very long enough to know which way to, to drag that. Smart move. Hey, look at this cup I got. Oh my God. Yes. The Tigers. I did not know this might came down. I went to Clemson lifelong Clemson fan worth, we're 20 minutes. The store's 20 minutes from the, the university. And Mike goes, I love it. You know, I think it's all got found out with Bella, like right before he got here or something. Yeah, Clemson fan. I was like, I knew I loved him. No, I really love him. Yeah. The fact that we're, you're cal 40 now, right? Yeah. I live in Oregon now. I'm in Oregon. Okay. You're going up to the Southern California. I think I had to be like the only Clemson fan, you know. Yeah. That is. There's something about that. It's quite amazing. Yeah. The chances of that are slim. But I'm glad I'm supporting our Clemson Tigers today with his drink of choice. I'm supporting our Atlanta Braves down the road. I'm hoping they, they started the high school and they're cooling off a little. Gotta get them started back to play this afternoon against the angels. I believe yes, the playing trout. I got trout today. I was looking at the odds on that. On Mike trout, one of our sponsors, wonderful sponsors, looking at a, I got to bonus credits. I got to play or they get used up. I was like looking at the get out. And we talked. We're both look kind of ex gamblers. I'm using credits. I didn't pay for Mike. So again, I get I'm not going back off or on the wagon. It's credits. I'm using first sponsor. You could appreciate. No judgment. No judgment. No judgment at all. I thought everybody get a kick out of this mic. You know, what better. I think there's a lot of curiosity. How do cars get graded? I mean, you know, the general rules are out there. But I think it is sort of like this black box that everybody's like. Wow. Yeah. Well, for one, everybody thinks they have a 10. And everyone walked in my shop thinks that they have a 10 to have a few reasonable people but mostly unreasonable. And I just thought, hey, Mike can do. Maybe we'll do this in segments. 101 this time. We'll do 201, 301. And for that, we do have our microscope camera here. Bella Schaefer, our excellent producer got the microscope hooked up. Listen, we're getting fancy now, Mike. We have a game worn patch from one of the greatest players to ever live and currently playing. According to me, it's a not for sale in the Ryan offered personal collection. I just picked this up. I'm trying to get the number on there. That's a 99 that's, I believe. Yep. I'm reading that correct. Yeah, six out of 99. Six out of 99. So we have a patch card which are hard to get pins on as it is of stick cards are terrible. But Mike, walk us through. I'll shift the card where you want it. You tell me kind of the rules, the 101 rules of grading and what you do. Yep. Okay. So first thing we do, we would take a quick measurement. So right now, we kind of zoomed in on the corner. But the first thing I would do is measure the card left to right, top to bottom. And then kind of present it to see how the centering looks for the card in terms of its borders, top to bottom, left to right. And then we'd be doing the evaluation with the seven power loop is what I use. Looking at the corners under magnification, kind of what you're doing right now. These cards are, the RPAs are a pain because of the manufacturing process that you just talked about. To get a 10 is like really difficult. Like kind of the average grade that we see is like an eight and a nine would be kind of like the 10. So a 10 is definitely, definitely challenging to get one. Just because they're handled by, there's a whole different manufacturing process. You're adding the patch. Sometimes you're adding an autograph and it's just getting handled way more than a normal card that's being produced. So people coming in with, with those types of cards, thinking they have a 10, they're definitely just need to be educated about why the cards sit the way they sit. Set up for disappointment. That's right. That's right. So looking at the corners, they look actually fairly square. I think what we would, you would need to do at this point, like digitally they look square. But even that corner looks like, maybe it has like a little light little fuzz on the upper right. So any top layer on the card stock front or back would count and be considered a flaw. How much of a flaw it's based on how much of the stock is missing. And you know, does it, is the corner truly square? Is it fuzzy, you know, things like that that kind of play into what's allowable for a 10, a nine, five, eight, five, eight, that type of thing. And so what are you seeing here already just qualifying a 10 most likely? Yeah. Just digitally right now, it looks like, yeah, it looks like under magnification. If you were looking at it in person and you have the card and you look closer under magnification with with a loop or magnifying lens, it looks like that corner has a little, a little rub, a light touch, so to speak. So if you add that touch up with the balance of the corners, and I'm sure we'll probably see some similar characteristics to kind of tie in to that because generally how they come to profile those cards. You're probably looking at like an eight, eight, five. Just off that one corner right there. So yeah. So I bet you like on the back, let's, let's turn it over real quick too. I'm on the back bear with this is our first segment using digital cam. The collector nation digital cam here. So it only gets better over time. Really branded. Yeah. Hey, Mike, that's how we do things. There we go. The NBA. Yeah. Collector nation digital cam. Yeah. Let's see here. Looks a little bit better. Yeah. Zooming. And isn't the back, correct? This is the back. Yep. Let's take a look at the other corner. Okay. I'm going to go bottom. That one looks pretty sharp. That one does that does that does look pretty sharp. That's here. That one looks like there's a slight little touch. Yeah. Okay. And then final back corner. Top. Red decent. Yeah, pretty decent. Yeah. I think I think it's at this point, it would be you looking at it physically, you know, with your, with your eyes or Manification and kind of tying in what you're seeing digitally and see if it comports to what you're seeing. Yeah. And then how does stuff. Maybe walk through the audience through. How much does corners take off versus sintering versus surface? So with centering, it's less subjective because there's parameters and there's centering devices that you can use. And then you can use it to get to line up the micrometer zero point on the edge of the car to the border area that's that you're calling the defined area of the border. So basically for that card, it would be, you know, let's see here. So like the bottom of the name plate would be so bottom of Allen right there would be one, one moniker and then the top of the car would be the other moniker. You would mic out the distance between the two, that looks pretty good. 5545 or better is, you know, allowable for a tent. And then the left to right would be, you know, from the, from the left of the blue from where it starts to the. Yep, that looks pretty darn good too. So I would say that centering wise, that looks like it has the ability to fall into a tent. So that would be the first thing and that's not subjective. And I will probably get the exact same measurement using the same device. And it would say it would tell you what the, the centering is left to right and top to bottom. On these cards too, for RPAs and patches, you want to look for the, where the patch is inserted. Sometimes you'll see surface wrinkles or like kind of where they were forced in pressure and it affects the card stock. Sometimes you'll look at the rim that's kind of the frame of the, of the patch. And you want to make sure that there's no, you know, wrinkling or kind of like pressure points from the card from the, from the patch being placed in there. That's kind of, that's actually a pretty big tip because people overlook that. They get caught up in, you know, it's, it's a number card. It's your favorite player. You know, the centering looks great. The corners look great. And then you forget about looking at the kind of technical detail of the, of how the patch frame is as well. So I'm hearing from you, Mike, but I'm not going to put words in your mouth. But based on what we've seen here, yeah, I might could, you know, get, look at the corners a little tighter. I mean, we're in that nine to 10 territory on this card, potentially, right? You're in the 90's and territory relative to centering. And if the, and the overall, I don't see any like obvious edge chipping from what I saw. So I think those qualities are pretty good. I don't know about service yet to look at the, the service to make sure there's no like indentations. Sometimes fingernails from the people that are handling our PAs sometimes will hit the back. So you want to make sure there's none of that. And then the other, the last thing really to kind of tighten up this package would be the, just the verification of the front and back corner tips to ensure that there's no stock loss. There's no poofy corners and things like that. And I cannot verify digitally that you have to do that in person. Or send it to you to. Or send it. Yeah. Yep. That's right. The goal. So a lot of the, we have the NBA digital review where we get a ton of, a ton of cards on the daily. And really what it is, people, I think lose sight of the fact that really what the service is for us to help vet what not to send. So if that card was off centered and it had obvious things that I could, you know, point out or do point out. That's something you don't want to send. But things that that fall within kind of like this card were, hey, digitally everything looks pretty, pretty darn good. And then it would just be the physical inspection that would tighten up what you're seeing digitally, basically. Is it true? It's not true that if you slip a hundo in with your card, you get a higher grade. I don't think it makes it to the graders to ever see that. Absolutely. So you have to ask the processors of the shipping clerks. That's better for them. And we want to start conspiracy theories here. I'm sure they're already out there. What's the funniest thing you hear now or in the past on that on the conspiracy theories that people say? What's the most common thing that people think that is just so far from the truth? I think people that have a good eye that always seem to have great cards are kind of looked at that they have an edge. It's not because they have a great eye or they've done, they put in the work and they know what they're doing. It's because there's some reason why my card looks like that and they're getting the benefit and I'm not. And so basically it goes to the fact if you sort of like an eagle you attract hunters and sometimes it just brings out that kind of jealousy or hate or whatever you want to call it. It's kind of like don't hate the player hate the game. And the game is that there's tons of information about what to look for. Just this little greeting 101 with the collector station digital cam is a good start for how to evaluate cards and make yourself better. You know a lot of people do this for a living too and the people that don't do it for a living that have a nine to five. And they're submitting cards because they pulled them from a pack and they believe there are tens. And you know the guy that's doing it for a living knows that when you pull a car from a pack it could have a light frictional pack wear from being in the recesses of a pack. And you you identify things and so those things don't make it. Integrating because gradients expensive as well and so you want to vet what you're going to be submitting and you submit what you believe is the best of the best. And if you go through that process and you're pretty consistent with it and you grow from it you bound to have pretty decent luck. You would think in terms of getting higher grades just because you're you know putting in the work to to give the creators the best stuff. So I think that's kind of the that's that would probably like the number one thing. It's conspiratorial wise about people getting you know better grades and whatnot to just you know some guys just have better eyes than than others. And what to look for and what the graders are looking for some things bug different grading services more than others. So there's little you know all these little nuances that you have to you know take into account. Well we did a we did a modern card with one of the greatest modern players of all time. Why not do a vintage card a little bit here Mike. If you love it. A little mind. This is one of my personal cards I have not had it graded. I just caked it on collection when you came by and it was sitting in my two review stack of things. But this is a willy maze. Like this. You probably know the year without me looking at it is it 19. Let's zoom in here my eyes are getting bad 68 66 66 56 willy maze. What am I looking for differently here Mike. Well so this is another good little tidbit modern cards are are graded just like vintage cards. So you're looking for the same centering parameters apply with the borders that are you know highlighted. You know you're looking at corner where maybe a little bit more edge issues with with with finished cards. You know they use rubber bands back in the day. So on the top edges and the on the side edges you'll see rubber band marks or little little edge deals from. You know there's stored differently back then too. You know card savers they weren't around back in the 60s. You know so they they kept them in shoe boxes. Didn't have a shoe box. She's trying to plastic. That's right. So basically yeah. She trying to plastic wasn't around there neither. So it was just things were just stored differently they were handled differently now there's way more of an awareness. That's why when you see cards that are you know eight nine and ten that are vintage cards. It's like that's the kid that had a toy that never opened it and played with it. You know there and that's why the cards are so expensive because there's not a huge population of the stuff. You know in high grade. And so the supply and demand you know drives the prices and you throw grading into it. Relative the eight nine's and tens and you throw a population report and a set registry. All of a sudden it's gamified and you know it's like I got to have it and prices go up based on the on the supply so. Let me ask here's something that I hear even I think I hear myself saying it sometimes. Yep. And I know it's probably not true so you're going to debunk it but. That's it. I'd live in the very world sometimes Mike fair. Yeah. Yeah. Just makes it we all doing the in the hobby convincing ourselves. Yeah. There's a little more lenience for corners on class older cards than new modern cards true false. There can be. I mean. Okay. Yeah. I mean there. You know everyone wants to you know go with the. The fact that it should be consistent to what you're doing and whatever everything should you grade in a 2000. You know car or 2026 card to a you know 1966 card you know it should be that way but the cards are different because we're dealing with paper. With 66 card you know 66 tops you're dealing with plastic with 2026 so the cards the cards where is different so the interpretation of what. What's out of bounds for an eight what's out of bounds for a nine and in in those two those two areas are are more subjective. So you might have more tolerance then on an older card vintage card on a perfectly square corner being a 10. It might be what would be a 10 and a vintage card might be a nine on a modern card. Well I don't know. Well it could be a lot of apples apples could take you to say paper versus plastic. It's paper versus plastic. It's it's how the wear is associated in terms of how you're kind of identifying the grade that you want to associate to the card. And it's not just one thing too. I mean if you have a you know 66 tops and everything's there in that card center that card to traditionally comes really off center. It has a lot of print effect that comes with it. The back center is always trash. So you know you take all those things to consideration and you know you come up with it. I will say though that if you have a corner hit it's not going to go 10. It shouldn't go 10. And when we talk about 10 to we're talking about gem mint. We're not talking about 10 pristine. We're not talking about 10 flawless gem 10 gem mint can have you know subtle little defects or flaws on the card. You know so if it had a little hit on the back the corner square but it's just a little touch. You know you're talking nine possible nine five. If everything else was there in totality of the card though. So it has to be awesome to kind of carry it over the defect or the flaw that is kind of like you know identifiable like on a corner or whatever. So what am I seeing here again Mike Baker authenticated Mike Baker world's greatest grader here with a song collection nation. But what the this corner here we're on the we're on the 66 it would turn 66 Willie May's tops what are we seeing. Okay so first off we're looking at the number one card in the set. So number one card in the sets always going to be more temperamental and conditioned sensitive because that sits in the front of the two three four five right behind it. Usually this card has band marks or something to kind of keep it's always the first one to be grabbed in terms of how it was stored. So that's always the first and last card are always kind of a conditioned sensitive card. They usually sell for a little bit more money, especially when they're all a famer. So it's good to know kind of keep that in the mind why the number one cuts not just because of May's it's because it's number one card. And because May's. You're checking the boxes with this one. What I'm kind of looking at right now on the upper left kind of going into like maybe a 64th into the card looks like there's some identifiable where I'm picking that off right. There's a light playing games to me. Yeah no you're picking it up. Yeah there's a little little bit there. I saw some of the where on the front immediately I was thinking five six range you know in terms of what I the two corners that I saw. So if if the corner where on the front the first two corners that I saw a match kind of what we're working with here I'd say it's like X X mint which is a five or a six you know at the top. It could get maybe a half point because what I saw of the card in the front it looked fairly decently centered. So center cards will kind of play into a half point in terms of its overall overall I appeal that definitely plays into NBA point five for sure. Yeah so. It definitely you know I was crying on the inside and when you said the backs usually not centered or is trash. Yeah that would be affirmative on this one if we get to this side. Yeah it's not horrible though because a lot of them will come like you know 85 15 90 10. And then it didn't make some more challenging that has a little bit more corner where there on the side looks like there's even a little bit on the edge there to the left of the corner. Yeah and then we've got this so far as sintering goes so you got that let's go to this side so we're saying not terrible but not good. Yeah I mean there's there's this you know that's probably average is that a little crease there in the black or a wrinkle or the ball. Yeah go yeah that line right where the word says yep that's a crease right there a wrinkle yep so that will impact so let's say the card is like a nine. That right there if it goes front and back is going to be like a four. Yeah so that that that right there definitely hurts the overall great and so you can have like a perfect card or you think it's a 10 and have something like that. Those also come with modern cards sometimes in the manufacturing process you know you'll just get weird you know manufacturing oddities and creases wrinkles can pop up and you definitely want to catch those so some of the lighting and whatnot can kind of play tricks in your head. Yep what um so how does surface look from what you can see on a digital camera of bully zoomed in yeah yeah how many variables can we put against you Mike but yeah well let's go up together now let's. So what we're looking for here so right there see that wrinkle in the blue and the left yep so they're or most likely a crease goes front and back that's pretty heavy yep so that one's going all the way to the top yep so okay so now we're talking. VG VGX so that would be three four range based on the severity of that you know so. So we were talking about corners we're talking about surface so you take everything into consideration including the centering on the back and just kind of like shot gunning it digitally that looks definitely like a three. If if it didn't have that crease yep based on centering in corners that you can see digitally obviously it's an official grade but yeah I would probably. Yeah probably five or six based on the corner where yeah digitally yep so pretty good copy if it doesn't have that crease and you know what this is why the number one card again in the last this is completely consistent with what I would expect to see from a card like this yeah and the number that it is for sure being the first card. So instead of seven million it's only two million for sale it's for your station dot com right say hey kid sure it's a love. Yes I love it also had this one but you know who that guy is yeah yeah so anything special what year is this this is a 66 66 as well I love how he could tell just based on the face. Yeah of course it's 20 rows it's a good hit machine he's the greatest it revolts. The card geeking out you know it's a lot of years checking it out is this year was like his third or fourth year I can't remember. So his rookies 63 so that would be his third year card. So the corner there. Actually his fourth year card is 63 64 65 66. Did he grow to be in the Hall of Fame. Yes I think you should be in the Hall of Fame based on what he did on the field you know the. Yeah I mean he was a liar but we all are at some point in our life so I mean I think his character is one thing but his play on the field you know from that incident I'm not judging him overall yeah but he's but his play on the field sort of honest don't. There's you know there's those player clauses in the contract where you're representing the baseball representing the team and organization and you know if you're doing something out of balance or whatever the likelihood of you getting in is really difficult you know especially modern Eric eyes I mean getting in now and Joe Jackson and you know obviously gambling in any sports as a big no no so and you get caught doing it it definitely you know I mean he had to live that and wear that cross for his entire life basically. So you know I still think you should be in yeah 4,000 hits he wasn't gambling on that you know you on more than 4,000. So we're looking same type of light light corner where it touches you know those those look like X met six type corners to me little little edge issue that you just rolled up on right there you can see. That's getting more into like whatever band does to a card and that's exactly again profile wise what you'd expect to see and some of the finished stuff. Yep that that corner has been hit pretty good. Is that kind of the crease maybe. We like our creases on these cards. Know what that is. See if I can get it to where you can actually see it. Yep. Little smaller though a little smaller as a go front and back. So just for your listeners the difference from a wrinkle wrinkle only affects one side of the card and a crease is going front and back. And that that impacts the grade to a creases on the back we did on the other. Yeah it looks like it should because it looks fairly you know kind of impactful a little bit but sometimes you'll see something that you almost like would bet your house on it's going to go front back and it and it's not it's just got. And it never never broke the surface of the of the back so trying to get it the light correct here on the. Location of those two play a part to if that was near the face it would be judge way harsher or much more impactful flaw than it would be if it's like in a corner or kind of in the corner. It's very very unimpactful Mike. I mean, really small corner. I mean, you know, no impact at all. Are you saying it actually increases the grade because of the rarity of the location it's in. It has originally. That's a that's the us collectors trade talk ourselves. I mean, but you know, I tried to convince myself that a crimp made it a 101 you know like a factory crimp. You ever heard that argument. I've heard that people like. You know, oversized cards or miscuts because it shows the originality from the factory and what not so there's no. No, you know, shenanigans or no question of whether or not the card is what it is so there's there's something for everybody in the community that's for sure. Or just people I mean trying to convince ourselves that it's worth. See how that line the black line at the top almost looks like is that. Is that an imperfection? It's a it's a rule of minor one. I mean, if we're talking if we're talking 9 10 that would that might be taking to effect based on the other the other attributes of the card. Yeah. Okay. So what's again, I know we've kind of breeze through this one sooner. But this is is there's another one that's maybe a six, but probably a four. No, with the crease though probably a crease where were the wrinkle because you're saying that it didn't go through that would probably a four. Okay. All right. Cool. I'm going to go crying the back after the show. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I knew these had flaws and they were bought accordingly, but I will be polishing them up for my display in my box. Not to be sold none of my PC is for sale. So at least when you go to your office, go into your office and grab the solace that you need. You have to hit the drink combination to get into it. Yes, I do. Oh, it's yes, Mike. Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. Dr. Pepper Sprite, Mr. Pib Mountain Dew for you, buddy. I love them all. Yes, I did install it. If you haven't seen the videos already and more to become I did I actually filmed one another one the other day. I did put a old vintage Pepsi machine door and really the whole box is the entrance to my office. So Mike was down and got to see that. Yeah, it's very cool. It's a very good card shop, right? I love it. You got to make you got to make yourself different. And that's what makes it. You know, do you sound a little bit better, a little bit different than everybody else? And it brings some, you know, new flair to it, right? I know. Hey, and now I'm making it, you know, like a, you know, the big hitters lounge, you know, come back for the big trades. You know, like, or if you just have something I want on, but you're back. Perfect. And your old kid comes in. I'm like, Hey, buddy, you want to come to, uh, I'm like, bring your parents. This isn't weird. I just really like that card you have. I'm going to give you as many mountain dudes as you want. That's great. Until you trade me that card. Yeah. I have a question for you. How's the, how's your drive through, uh, shaping up? It's good. Honestly, it's a, it's exactly what it's meant to be. It's, it's a, uh, a point of discussion and marketing conversation starter. Yep. Uh, what we are going to do to facilitate, like, you know, we're open six days a week. We, we've been toying around it, you know, is it five, six, whatever? We might do a drive through only day. So that people, you know, so that we can get some things done. Yep. And not have people in the entire store, but it sort of facilitates and becomes useful. So, hey, you can order a lot of call in or, you know, we're not, I love it. We're not going to mystery shop for you or anything. But like, you can, uh, you know what you want? Come to the window. We'll check you out. So we'll probably facilitate the usage. But it is a, uh, a, an attractor of, of business and discussion. Maybe more than it's being used. It is a catalyst. I agree. And that was the point. I'll be honest. I was like, cause it didn't really serve a purpose otherwise. And I was like, right, right. Well, at least make it a, uh, marketing and discussion point. It's totally fine. I love it. Yeah. And I do think there will be, um, because it's the first two, you don't have people that are used to that. So they don't know to do that. And I think as we educate more and as we get more business, even though business has been really good, um, I could see it getting used more. But I really don't care if it gets used, you know, five times ever. Right. Well, part of, part of, you know, the whole collecting experience is like the, you know, is the interaction and, you know, shop in and talking about this at the other. Talking about your braves, clenching tigers, whatever it may be, you know, it has a purpose. But it's, you know, like, I agree. It's great marketing and, um, it'll draw people in for sure. Mike, where, what's the schedule for NBA? Any new things coming out? New, uh, you know, I know you've got a lot of, you know, growth happening and all those things. But yeah, what's the quick NBA update? A quick little snapshot is our travel schedule. I just lined out till the end of October. We're going to be pretty much here there every word twice a month at minimum, sometimes three times a month. Um, leaving for Cleveland tomorrow, going to the Strongestville Ohio show. We'll be doing the diamond certification on site. Um, I'm flying to heritage auctions Sunday night to do their auction for diamond certification on Monday. I get back to headquarters at a couple days, you know, catch up in the office and then take off to the Boston Shriner show on Thursday. Come back Sunday and then we're going to be doing on site card grading at the Dallas show in May. So that'll be a big, a big lift operationally for us to have basically are almost our entire office in Dallas facilitating on site. Card grading and encapsulation. So that'll be kind of a good precursor for the, for the national because we're going to provide the service there as well. So we can work out some kings and debug some things and hopefully not make a mess of things and, you know, make it happen. Yeah. The digital review box much like what we were just going over with you with digitally with looking at cards. I wanted to bring it to your shop and kind of launch it there. I literally picked it up this morning. I saw it's awesome. Nice. So I'm looking forward to getting one out to you. So you'll be able to have your customers put the card underneath it digitally would go to us. And, you know, we'd be able to give instant feedback and have them kind of help that what to send off or not send off. We haven't expanded into the rock heart area. So like doing this rock heart digital, guess the grade type thing is something we've kind of toyed with. But generally speaking, it's for previously through party graded cards. Cards that have already been graded PSA SGC tag BGS and CGC. So, so we're ramping up launch start new back in admin system, which was a big lift. We've been working on that for almost four months. So that's huge. It's really made us a lot more efficient. We can track things better, make the customer experience much more, you know, user friendly. So we've got a lot of a lot of things in the hopper. There's not enough time in the day as you know. So we're going to keep trucking prioritize of things that have the most impact and keep keep trucking. So love it. So will you be you'll be grading on site of the national. I hear that. Yes. And like grading there, like turn it in day one, get it back day three or that kind of thing. Well, we'll have service lines that you can if you have to have the card back, you can get it back in a few hours. You can get it back same day. Okay. You'll get back next day. So a lot of that's going to be dependent on how obviously how much we we get relative. We might get it to a certain amount, you know, based on what we're getting. I don't know. It's kind of like that's what I think with the Dallas show is going to kind of give us some some good data to kind of figure out how to approach the national and how many holders that we bring in or we're just going to bring. You know, the number one holder, which is a two and a half by three and a half and just kind of stick to 1957 tops to present. Yeah. You know, so because we have a we have a number of holders, Gowdy, T206, you know, Bowman. So there's a ton of stuff. And you know, that's where it gets really interesting, both logistically, operationally, expense, all that stuff. It's got to be the business case to kind of like bring your entire office and move it for, you know, five days and then make everything seem like it's perfect. So I don't know if everybody paid attention there. I just heard a challenge. It's called we want 20,000 cards brought to NBA at the national. Like 20 everybody bring your cards. If you're listening, I'll pay everyone a dollar out of my pocket because I want to get to 10,000 cars for NBA at the national. So they were. We will. I want my decry uncle. Like, hey, that was a good thing, though, business. I'm getting it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do 10,000 cards in five days would be like a that's a lift. You know, I don't even think the bigger services could could pull that. Honestly, at least in a fair amount of time, I think mainly it would be a 10,000 card submission. Do what you can. Yeah, we're having graders here on Alpin. I heard graders say, if you've got a keen eye, come down to my finger. I thought it could. We would need that. Oh, yeah, the lower your status for hiring. That's one thing I will get. That's why we're gated right now is because we're we're finding the right people that I will say that so there won't be. We're not looking just to put stuff out the door. We could be we could be doing thousands of cards right now a day if we wanted to. We're holding it back to we find the right people and then of scale appropriately. So our product's pretty awesome. Yeah. It's a chest bump. But it's pretty legit. So I think this is a 10 right here. That is a 10. That is a 10 for steam. Oh, yeah. Our Pokemon ascended heroes that we sent Mike that he brought and delivered. Let me say it's the only one we got. So there was no cheating friends, friends and everything. You know, he all that, you know, any new service to is going to get scrutinized. So, you know, you you hold the standard from the get from day one and you keep it going. That's a builds a consistency and more Portland to trust. Yes. If you build the trust with the culture community, people know what to expect. There's not a lot of highs and lows. And you communicate and you your your transparent about everything. That's the most important thing. So we'll live and die on that. One of my Quinn years. I got three of the same parallel autograph Quinn years out of one break. Out of one case. Three out of a hundred. There's only a hundred made. I got three of them in one break of Quinn. Yours. That was one of the you grated. No, it was a crazy thing. It's $150 card. And he broke it. It was 12 packs. It was it was a break where there's only 12 packs open. It's their one pack boxes. So you open 12 packs and I got three Quinn and I had Quinn. Yours is my player. I got a random draw of players. And I got Quinn. I've never seen the odds of that happening, Mike, because it was out of a hundred. So it was a numbered auto at that. I got three out of a hundred out of one case break. I would have as soon as I got the third one. I would have booked a ticket to Vegas and kept the roll going. Honestly, it's probably like the odds are probably like one in 250,000. Like it's insanity. Yeah. I can't get for you. I mean, I wish it's Jackson Dart, but you know, Quinn's a good player. It's still under video card. So I think I spent like 40 bucks on hangout. Yeah, yeah. Five hours. And that's more because now I have a 9.5 graded. Mint NBA of the card. So I got one of the three. The best one that we thought had the best chance. And we were close. 9.5. Nothing to nothing to sneeze at. I was the one that picked which out of the three were sending. And so it's my wisely. So it's got the eye. Good job. Yeah. She does. You have to start looking at more cards. You're right. I had cold. Check my work. Don't worry. Oh, cold's pretty good too. This is the clicker. The clicker nation. Clicker station staff. They all have a good eye. Yes. Exactly. We got to have a. Mike dropped the website. And I know you said all the locations, but the website social all that stuff. Yeah. Basically, I think you it's NBA diamond.com is the website and NBA diamonds with the S for Instagram. We have our show schedule posted. Please. We're really aggressive going out there shaking hands and kissing babies. So talking about NBA, talking about the industry. So if you're around any of those shows, come on by and say hi. Look guys, it's clear that Mike and I have a relationship. But it's because I like him because he's transparent. I'm raw. I'm real. He is. But I'm telling you, this is what you want. We talk about grading. We talk about this black box. And look, Mike's been with the best, the biggest all those. He's done all those things. But he's real. Don't forget that. Go support this guy. Support what they're doing in NBA diamonds because I do appreciate you, Mike. Thank you. Thank you for being always. Hey guys, the collector nation.com. Go visit the site. Learn more about what we're doing. And of course, the app is always out there. And hey, if you want to see more about what we're doing in the store, the collector station. .com. You know where I'm at? I'm Ryan Allford on Instagram. That's where to hit me. I read every DM. Get hundreds a week. Send me more, more, more. I love you. Appreciate you. We'll see you next time on collector nation. Thanks for tuning into the show. Be sure to follow us on your go to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at collector nation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Allford. Now get out there and collect yours.