We sit down with Mike Lakusta, passionate golf card collector and host of the Fondling Cardboard podcast to discuss his hobby history, learn about the breadth and selection of golf card sets from vintage to Upper Deck PGA to the upcoming Panini LIV, is it all about Tiger Woods, hear about the golf card community, the inspiration and mission of his podcast, and we will touch on card addiction, escapism, impulsivity, the collector/investor debate, the ethics of buying/selling after tragedy/death and more so join us live and bring your questions and comments as they will be in play.
Leighton Sheldon of Just Collect and Vintage Breaks joins for the “Vintage Spotlight” segment!
Saturday June 29 @ 7:00pm PST / 8:00pm MST / 9:00pm CST / 10:00pm EST
#sportscards #thehobby #golf
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[Music] [Music] sports cards is a lifestyle sports cards and we live now Jeremy Lee in the building and every guess that you ever needed sports cards after hours keep the hobby heated updates hobby talk like you never seen it sports cards live and N could ever beat it sports cards is a lifestyle sports cards and we live now welcome to another episode of sports cards live with your host Jeremy Lee [Music] all right everybody Welcome to episode number 231 of sports cards live it’s Saturday night June the 29th 2024 my name is Jeremy Lee and I would like to thank everyone who joined us last week whether you viewed or listen to the episode with Johnny amandola of mint Inc we had a great show thank you for everybody that joined us then pwcc weekly hockey show is back again tomorrow night with Josh Madigan of The Gong Show show and MC Mondays is back again this Monday we’ll be covering the action auction countdowns live here on Sports Cards live everybody filth bomb breaks offers live case and box breaks and they do so with responsibility and integrity if you enjoy group breaks and are looking for a company to break with please check out filth bomb streaming on Fanatics live on four channels 7 days a week also if you are looking to add a Grail to your collection make sure to check out fun your cards the Hobbies leading consolidator they will help you finance the purchase with your own cards visit fundou cards.com and tell them Jeremy Lee sent you all right I want to shout out hobby newws daily.com check out that website for daily news articles podcast information a great collection of hobby content creators on hobby newws daily.com also want to shout out Leon Sheldon just collect Leighton will be joining us later today later tonight for the Vintage Spotlight segment also guys please keep in mind this show is available on Spotify apple or wherever you get your podcast please follow And subscribe for free and please leave a rating or review on your podcast platform and as always I would like to thank all of our loyal viewers and listeners for your ongoing support I do greatly appreciate all of that it is very very special thank you so much if you are not yet subscribed to the channel or the podcast please take a moment as do so as always tonight your comments and your questions are in play everybody so let’s get to it tonight’s guest started in the Hobby in 1998 when a friend of the family gave him a 20 liter tub of her son’s hockey cards he was all in until about 2004 collecting goalies and TCG in 2009 he dabbled in Panini basketball and sporadically collected from 2010 until 2020 when the pandemic hit and he jumped full out into golf cards in 2023 he started the fondling cardboard podcast his favorite athletes of all time are Steve Nash Shane Don Tiger Woods Matthew wolf and Lando Norris and his favorite teams of all time are McLaren F1 the Arizona Coyotes and Liv golf’s range goats he’s originally from Langley BC currently hailing out of Calgary Alberta same city as me let’s bring him out Mike lus welcome to sports cards live how you doing tonight good weather we’re having here today huh yeah doing great what is up Jeremy I’m really glad to be here thank you yeah it’s funny guys we were we were meeting in here the other day and uh doing some just just some planning having a chat I’m like so where do you live again he’s like I live in Calgary same as you and I thought well isn’t that isn’t that hilarious because I I I feel like I knew at one point Mike but it was good to be reminded and uh nice to have you have you here we live at Calgary where we both live it’s a very spread out city north to south I don’t know how many kilometers miles long it is but several we might be a 50 kilometer long City something like that and uh I think you and I live at sort of opposite ends for the most part but it’s uh it’s good to have you here as well you know I don’t I don’t really collect golf cards I do have one I do have one golf card uh but you know I thought I at first I thought I don’t know if golf card is something that that you know I want to spend a show talking and then I thought I thought I actually do I actually do and from just from seeing the uh the comments in the chat already uh I think that uh that this is something something that was kind of due to happen and so it’s good to have you here Mike let’s jump in though let’s jump in and learn a bit more about you as a collector your hobby history I kind of ran through it there in the intro but why don’t you kind of fill that out a little bit any mistakes I might have made and uh kind of take us through your your journey thus far through till now for sure so my Venture into cards actually started mostly with Pokemon so with trading card games and the the hockey thing was a little bit of like a side mission like I I just I wasn’t too into sports at that time I was only six years old and so honestly my main memory of the 90s is cards it was going to school and all the older kids at school opening packs of Pokemon cards and just the shiny ESS and everything got me excited and so um for the first gosh five years of my card collecting it was sort of just this way for me to kind of cope with some issues I was dealing with I don’t need to get too into it early on in the show but you know my my family my parents divorced early and my dad lived down in Arizona so hence the coyotes and you know I was moving around I went to six or seven different elementary schools by the time I reached grade five um had 10 different homes by the time I reached 10 years old um with my mother the whole way but we moved around a lot and made a lot of friends and cards was kind of my way to connect with make friends when I reached a new city a new school and I’m an outgoing person and it was just sort of this way for me to put my cards on the table and you know make friends um and then it was actually in the mid 2000s when sports cards really took off for me because I was playing basketball and I really looked up to Steve Nash he was my idol I read a book on Steve Nash and you know early teenage years that’s not really your prime years for reading I don’t think so you know to have read that book and really admired him at one point I think I was about 12 or 13 years old I even wrote him a letter that asked him to come fishing with me that’s how silly my um my mindset was and um it was you know I took a a Hiatus as I got really into playing basketball in high school and went off to University and then you know once University ended I did dabble here and there with cards but it was the pandemic that really drew me in and by that point I was obsessed with golf I had gotten hooked I was I got the bug as they say and uh and and when I found out they had golf cards I immediately started looking at Tiger Wood’s rookies all the golfers that I liked and I found out my gosh they don’t have any recent sets there hadn’t been any golf sets since 2014 of course there were multiports sets and things of that nature and I was really disappointed by that like I I thought oh my gosh I’m not going to get any of these guys I’m watching on TV and then I found out you know next year from when I started collecting in 2021 they were going to be releasing Upper Deck artifacts Golf and that as well as two other sets and I just got absolutely fired up I was two feet into the hobby again and I started the Golf Card Collector Instagram I I mean I I started a YouTube channel I never really uploaded anything to it but I had this this draw to really try and produce content around golf cards because amongst all my research I couldn’t find anything really out there um of course now that I’ve been in it for four years I’ve come across a lot of resources but you have to dig to find them right on yeah so I I love what I what I really picked out of of all that Mike was that you you you were switching schools as a kid and you’d use cards as a way to forge friendships and maybe maybe find some commonality with some of these kids and that’s a what what a great tool that that’s something I’ve never heard before you know I’ve talked to hundreds of people on the show over over four years now and that I don’t think that’s something that’s ever come up before and I I kind of want to add that to the list of benefits of collecting cards for for kids and I’ve never considered that somebody might be moving maybe you’re in a military family or your your parents move for work on a regular basis whatever the reason what a what a great benefit cards can be for for kids like that that’s awesome and then you mentioned you heard that artifacts was coming out in 2021 Upper Deck announced they were going to put that one out artifacts is a pretty cool set in hockey it’s been around you know since I think’ 05 were you familiar with the brand in hockey cards and did that help cause you to be excited for the golf set to come out I wasn’t familiar at all with artifacts from golf cards um I was I once I heard about it I did a little bit of research but I didn’t know about it prior uh one of my co-workers at the time was more of a hockey collector than I am or was at the time and so he kind of filled me in you know what to look out for he kind of told me a little bit about the history about artifacts and uh but regardless of what it was I was excited yeah cool okay so I want to get to some comments then we’ll we’ll get into more of the show and I want to remind everybody that uh as Mike has let you know and I’ve let you know we have this pack of SP game used golf by Upper Deck 2024 that we’re going to open up during the show we’re going to do this uh a little bit later not sure exactly when but we’re going to do this a little bit later and we’re gonna open it here and someone’s gonna win all the contents I’m going to ship them out and and Mike is going to let us know what these cards are who these players are make sure that I can pronounce them all properly let’s get to some comments before we get too deep Shane O’Brien welcome to the show Victor kinderman welcome as well some new names here today I want to thank you for that Mike stoes what is going on good evening says I he collect has a few golf cards loves the game Jacob doll loyal viewer can’t wait for this one I’m a Golf Card Collector also that’s cool Jake good to know also loves playing the game vintage Card Collector is looking forward to discussion knows nothing about golf cards Robert Scott what’s going on Mark says evening Jeremy before I even hear a single word I would like to say thank you for this well thank you Mark for joining Jeff McMahon is here as always M Victor kinderman says Mike L the goat there you go Mike got some fans in here Ryan what’s going on Mike Mark santui is here what’s going on Mark Shane o Brian Mike is the man good to see you all T teapot is here teapot from the sports card investor group is here what’s going on Tyler good to see you sto says tough watching my some of my favorite teams move the Jets and the the North Stars yes that is never easy and now now Mike has just gone through that as well with his Arizona Coyotes that’s and that was my exact that was the franchise I saw move to Arizona from Winnipeg in 1996 it was heartbreaking guys I got to tell you it was heartbreaking back then so you know Mike and I have that sort of in common now that we’ve both lost the same franchise uh only about 30 years apart though lappers here what’s going on Aaron good to see you buddy good to see you let’s go Jordan good to see you the professor Is Here Yeah Ryan I picked that out too I thought that was such a great Point what’s up cardboard Richard in the house what’s going on Richard guys Van City card show being promoted by cardboard Richard coming in October I’m gonna be there no doubt Mark Santo says Mike do you have any Johnny Miller Arnold Palmer Jack Nicholas cards he’s pulling them out right now you guys let’s the spotlight on him right there there’s a few of his car those are those look like black diamond is that what those are Mike yeah that’s one of my PCS is the Black Diamond uh Diamond Relic set but we can get into that a little bit later um I’m saving the the best ones off screen right now that those look really really nice Joe perau is here what’s going on Mitch grman in the house what’s going on Mitch congratulations on your Florida Panthers winning the Stanley Cup Mitch triple triple V intrigued by vintage golf cards yeah no doubt and Todd McDonald what’s going on Todd Ryan vintage says vintage tobacco golf cards are amazing Tom Morris Bobby Jones Etc all right all right well let’s uh let’s keep going let’s let’s learn a bit about golf cards now Mike because you know I don’t know a lot about them I I mean I remember the early Don Russ sets like 1982 something like that but be prior to that I couldn’t tell you what there was for golf I I guess you have you know we got Bobby Jones cards going way back maybe in sports Kings and that kind of thing but I’d like you to let’s start with vintage Mike can you just sort of give us a a quick rundown of what is available vintage wise out there in the marketplace for golf carts you know what I actually consulted one of our vintage correspondents of the golf cards and memorabilia Facebook group because I only have a limited number of vintage cards I have had a few and I’ve sold a few um but the the kind of eras break down like this we have pre-war vintage golf which is up until 1942 and earlier post-war vintage which is 1943 to 1970 and my vintage correspondent uh clarified that we call it um pre-war and postwar rather than tobacco cards because there are more than just tobacco cards uh then vintage is 1971 to 1995 um that’s where you’re going to you know get most of the sets you just referred to Don Russ Pro Set that sort of stuff and it sounds like it’s kind of strategically aligned with 1995 so that 1996 is the birth of the modern cards because that’s Tiger Wood’s first card the Sports Illustrated for kids that I think you might want a copy of uh so then we’ve got modern which is 1996 to 2014 and then Ultra Modern of course is everything since okay no great rundown you mentioned pret and now I remember when pret came out in the early 90s I think one of the big cards in that was it elit trino was that a big card in that uh I feel like I feel like it was that that’s my memory at least can you can you enlight like let me ask you this Mike we had you had the Don Russ stuff in the early 80s then you got to skip all the way ahead 10 years almost for the Pro Set and then you got to skip ahead what another 10 years until Upper Deck came out with the first year so was it literally was it literally like one major set every decade for that kind of 20e span uh there were a couple different years those are definitely like the main years but you’re right that it definitely wasn’t an annual release and frankly it’s still not that way up until today um because we don’t get new golf seats every year but um I guess rewinding back to that era um Pro Set I think might have had one or two years uh key cards would be like the John Daly rookie card um yeah there’s Al Travino uh my personal favorite would be like the Payne Stewart uh rookie card and there’s a couple versions it’s got the same image one of them is silver and one of them is I think green and one of them came from that golf product the other one was actually part of the NFL Pro Set uh product and it was You’ have NFL collectors siting through and say who the heck is this golfer and funny enough on on one of the Facebook groups I think might have been sports card nonsense uh there was somebody posted a picture of that paint Stewart card saying I pulled this out of an NFL pack what the heck and it was like a miscut like it was gosh 20 or 30% or more shifted off to the side so it was actually kind of a rare Poll for anybody who likes golf um so those will be kind of the key cards from Pro Set and then I don’t know if you wanted to talk about Donruss at all as well well I mean the Donruss to me that’s where we find Jack Nicholas’s rookie card I believe but but he had some real Oddball cards in the 70s as in the early 70s as well can you just tell us what is Jack Nicholas’s rookie card what is Michael Jordan’s rookie card that’s it’s like yeah you know I’m not gonna say it’s a touchy subject but the point comes across it’s like some people would certainly say Don Russ is his rookie card um I think that it’s his first pack pulled card I think maybe one one of the Oddball ones as you said maybe those were pulled out of packs if they were what we Define as a pack today the randomly assorted you know in a hobby box type of product I don’t know for sure um but personally I always believe in the first ever printed card I I like the card that you have the 1996 Tiger Woods rookie from Sports Illustrated for kids and we can talk about that card later so the equivalent for Jack Nicholas would be the 1971 gosh what set is it from uh Jax Barrett rookie card that’s what it was and it was a tobacco card in 1971 and and funny enough that’s actually the reason that we start the Vintage era as opposed to postwar Vintage is because that 1971 date is important to include Jack’s tobacco rookie card in the Vintage era ah got it okay okay that that makes sense I want to go to more lots of great comments coming in so I want to say hello to svans in North Dakota what’s going on Sullivan clay Phillips good to see you always is the professor says that he heard Mike first discuss golf first discuss golf cards on the sports card strategy show with Paul hickey just last month yeah you’ve worked with Paul in the past Paul’s a previous guest of this show as well and then sto says the Payne Stewart card was all over the place in 1990 I remember that super well as well let’s say hello to Mojo Sports what’s going on Jay thank you for dropping by yelia Williams good evening to you yeah vintage this is a great here’s a great question from vintage Card Collector Mike and it’s not even one that was on on in our notes but it’s a great question so let’s ask it after Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholas who what other three players would round out the top five golf players to collect or that are collected Mike let’s hear that from you well asking a golf collector like myself I’m probably gonna think of a maybe like 10 20 different names so if I try to list off five right now forgive me if I try to add on one or two at the end but we we have to rewind all the way to the beginning the the grandfather of golf in fact uh his his nickname was called the Grand Old Man of golf I believe and that’s old Tom moris and he had a card I believe it was uh 1900 or 1902 copes gosh my friends are going to rip me for not remembering the exact year but it’s it’s it’s a a holy grail of of golf cards um it was a tobacco card it’s obviously over 100 years old now and Tom Morris is the first person to really bring golf around the world uh to kind of make it into a professional you know sporting event and um and his son is young Tom Morris and so that’s why we differentiate between the two as old Tom Morris and young Tom Morris so you know I would put old Tom Morris on the on the um in that top five young Tom Morris is kind of like a underneath him um you know and then we get to some very very important names like Ben Hogan uh Arnold Palmer uh of course Bobby Jones who was uh the inspiration and starting the Masters um so just you know right there we’re only talking vintage names and and and around the pre- and post-war V uh vintage names of but of course we get into you know the the modern Ultra Modern time frame and we’re seeing somebody do something that only we’ve only ever really seen from Tiger Woods and so I have to put his name on the list here and that’d be Scotty Sheffer okay what about guys like Phil Mickelson I mean he seemed to be everywhere A lot of the time and uh what was it was it VJ Singh was another one I think was a great golfer I mean I’m just so everybody understands and you know I am not a golfer I I don’t golf I’m not I don’t watch golf on TV but I do catch some things and I C I do see leaderboards and I do follow the hobby so I I I know a little bit about it but you know I I remember Sergio Garcia when Upper Deck put out their first set in like 2000 it was you had Tiger Woods but the second guy back then was Sergio Garcia are people still is he still relevant do people still collect him what about Phil Mickelson what about John daily do the are these guys collect because if these were baseball players or basketball or hockey I think that these guys would have a fan base how does it work in golf for these guys absolutely I mean do people collect Patrick W do p people collect Dan Marino do people collect you know these other amazing amazing players at their Sports Allan Iverson for basketball uh you know like pick pick a name from any sport and it’s someone who who might reach a Hall of Fame career someone who might you know be kind of edging towards that top 20 of all time top 10 of all time but but not quite on that Mount Everest or they’re not quite in that top five list so when you think of a name like uh Phil Mickelson Sergio Garcia what are you going to do to evaluate their careers I mean obviously there’s people who have a personal connection to them for whatever reason or collected them when when they were in their Prime and continue to do so now but once they’ve they’re starting to fade and in fact in some cases Phil certainly hasn’t helped his popularity by uh not only joining Liv but a lot of the comments that he’s made along the way um you have to start comparing them to people in history so then you’d have to pull out names like Jean sarzen or Gary Player Gary player won more Majors than anybody you just mentioned and and is Gary Player you know someone who people are collecting sure he is but he’s he wouldn’t quite reach that Pinnacle um so so when it comes to golf collecting here’s an interesting point and this is different than a lot of other sports and and I would actually say it is it’s it’s Unique to Niche sports like golf tennis um uh pro wrestling is another one that comes to mind collectors tend to follow their heart so whatever they have a personal connection to is what they’re going to be collecting and they tend to be drawn towards cards that are um more Primal in their stylings in that are obviously rare that are you know memorabilia focused they’re autograph focused you know the sort of things that if you were to pull it out and show wife or or show your your neighbor at a barbecue they’d say wow that that looks rare whereas those of us who are deeper into the hobby collecting mainstream Sports collecting parallels that are talked about a lot today whatever precious metal gems those sorts of things you know you show it to someone and it looks cool but you know it’s it’s you you have to be educated to start uh dabbling and enjoying that aspect of the Hobby and what I’ve seen from a lot of golf cart collectors is that Elementary you know beginning in the hobby kind of approach and what’s interesting is a lot of collectors are golfers themselves and can you say that about golf or hockey or basketball or other sports you know do most PE people play those Sports and and so I think a lot of those people who play golf just wanted some kind of way to participate that wasn’t the sport itself and so they kind of stumbled into cards which is different I think than a lot of other collectors out there yeah you you that’s such a great point isn’t it cuz so many people golf All My Friends golf I mean it’s like everybody golfs it feels like and if you if you golf maybe you like to watch golf and maybe you’re going to collect the cards so maybe you know it almost feels like golf cards are an untap have a lot of unta potential uh as far as the hobby goes because of the fact that so many people do golf so yeah that was that was good I’m really uh really happy to learn more about that right there yelia says love me some Johnny Miller cards Ryan says 1933 gouty has a couple of big name golf cards yes I I that’s I’m even even I’m aware of that Robert Scott says Payne Stewart was the best dressed man in golf he was known for that wasn’t he he always wore his uh his his Argyle vest I believe it was uh Mark wants to know is it possible to ask Mike his opinion on why the 2002 Upper Deck Tiger Woods golf glove Swatch card is so amazingly undervalued in today’s Card Market uh Mike can you can you address Mark’s question here yeah of course uh it’s his secondy year pack pulled uh autograph uh memorabilia type card if it was 2001 it would be through the moon um 2001 is Tiger Woods first pack pulled rookie cards I’m sure we can talk more about that later um you know I personally agree that it’s it’s tragically undervalued because in 2001 there were only autograph cards and memorabilia cards but there was no RPA so it was produced the following year it’s technically not a rookie card but it is his you know only RPA so to speak so I agree with Mark but it just has to do with the fact that it’s not his his rookie season all right well there you go good reason uh triple V says I enjoy an Arnold Palmer I got to say so do I I I don’t when I go out I often order an Arnold Palmer which is simply lemonade nice tea mixed together it’s a delicious drink everybody uh and there you’re welcome go order one up they are delicious have you ever had an Arnold Palmer I don’t think I ever have no no there you go now now you know Mark says uh you’re correct before he left for the for the live tour Phil Mickelson’s name was in every conversation yeah I mean I Phil was everywhere on TV all the time and he goes on to say Mark goes on to say they are still collected these uh these cards of all these real you know Legends of Golf James says please do not Sharpie your pmgs yeah we don’t want to be uh altering cards everybody that that pretty much goes without saying right there uh and what Mark also says as much as I want there to be one sanctioning body in the game of golf if they want to keep the collectability and popularity of the players that move to the live golf tour they need to make golf cards for them and well Panini is about to do that is not is not right Mike yeah I don’t know how deep you want to get into that right now but uh Liv is going to produce or sorry Panini is going to be producing cards for Liv and it’s very interesting because they have a a deal with the league whereas you know Upper Deck has to contract with every individual player yeah for sure I I do want to talk we’re gonna get into that right away here H but first couple more comments yelia says that Nick falo is the Tim Duncan of golf cards and let’s go Jordan says my favorite golfer is MJ had to get that comment in right there Shane O’Brien says Arnold Palmer are so good the Arizona Iced Tea cans for 9 cents each yeah they really are delicious but let’s Okay because right now I wanted to transition from that vintaged conversation and and really you you informing us to the modern what does the modern program of golf cards look like we know upper deck is making cards for PGA but let’s take a second and talk about what is about to come with panini and the Liv golf tour car and my my question for you is is the golf cart collecting Community excited for this uh yes I would say is the answer of course it’s controversial and there’s mixed reactions um live is a controversial subject for so many reasons um first and foremost is there was controversy surrounding their backing their funding it was uh I don’t need to provide a huge history but there’s been this ongoing push for team events for golf for decades going back to the mid to late 90s and it was actually Greg Norman who’s been trying to push this that entire time and it really only came to the Public’s eye recently as Liv blew up but he started to he tried to produce I forget the names of them um and in fact I’m planning on doing an entire sort of series about how Liv came to be on my podcast but uh he tried to create like the P pgl like the professional Golf League multiple times and kept failing and and a lot of it came from PGA Tour members and Boards trying to say well no you’re going to be splitting splitting the sport which of course eventually once he succeeded in doing this with uh funding through the Saudis uh it did it did split the sport so when Liv came about uh and started recruiting players the PGA went on the defense or sorry the offense as their defense and tried to attack them from an ethical perspective saying it’s blood Money saying all the terrible things that the um the The Prince and the the government has done out in that part of the world in order to basically convince its tour members not to leave and take the cash and leave and so that’s comes kind of the second contentious point is that there’s only so many people who could sign a live contract it was very lucrative like we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars for the top players uh potentially like I’m sure they would have offered tiger a billion dollars to to join um and some players were declining based on whatever reason ethical not wanting to travel on the world whatever and so they felt spiteful or resentful towards those who did take the money um so all of this has culminated in in fans and viewers not really knowing how to feel some people have strong feelings one side or the other people should be free to do whatever they want and join live or you know we should keep the history and the legacy of the PJ intact otherwise what’s going to happen to the history books is there going to be an asterisk next to Scotty sheffer’s name um because he’s not playing against Brooks Kea and Phil Mickelson and whoever else is is currently a superstar on the live tour um as often of course he still encounters most of them at the majors um collectors are looking at this though in my eyes a lot of people I talk to trying to set all of that off to the side and say ultimately Upper Deck has been the only real producer of golf cards there’s some great looking and collectible Leaf cards um some some totally random stuff as well super glow and I’m not going to name those kind of companies but for for for a company like Panini to come in it’s going to do a multitude of things it’s going to put upper deck some pressure on Upper Deck to be frank like because Liv has all of or sorry Panini is going to have all of the Live players in their set it’s going to be a complete checklist and one of the biggest complaints these days is that our golf sets are only partial they’re like 50% of the players there’s some key names that are missing and and we can get more into that um later but people are excited to get a complete checklist and there’s a lot of names on there that we have never had cards for I mean Sports Illustrated for kids for a handful of them but other than that there’s nothing nothing pack ped so we’re we’re going to get guys like Phil Nicholson and people that we have had cards from but Brooks uh cam Smith you know I’m not going to name them all but there’s there’s going to be some amazing cards coming from that yeah that that that’s really cool I mean it’s it is sort of too bad that the whole thing is split I suppose but that’s the world we’re in and uh and it’s nice that uh I guess it’s nice for for golf collectors to be able to find and have assortment upper deck is going to continue with PGA and now you’ve got that those different the different look and feel of Panini cards coming in on live golf uh cardboard Richard has this question he wants does Charlie Woods have any valuable cards yet I would say the only Charlie Woods card that’s probably gonna matter excuse me has been released and that was the Sports Illustrated for Kids Charlie Woods um as to Value you know I would say that’s the one that would have value um I don’t know if Charlie Woods is going to be the superstar that we hope he’s going to be maybe I’m just cynical but I hope he is you know i’ I’ve watched him play at the PNC Championship where the parent and the child play together or grandparent and child and grandchild and you know I’ve seen Charlie Woods for years now uh competing he looks amazing um but the comparison that comes to mind is when Jack Nicholas’s grandson uh I think his name was Gary Nicholas uh M made the PGA Tour and and he had some cards into the 2001 upper deck set and whenever I come across his cards I read the last name and say Nicholas I say holy crap I have to hit by now because of the price and I realize oh it’s his grandson and I look at Charlie Woods potentially kind of going in that direction 20 years from now okay good to know good to know uh we’re gonna we’re going to bring Leighton Sheldon on for the Vintage Spotlight segment in just a second but first I want to get to a question that came in on Instagram from David jger who’s the co-host of the chase on the David Adams yeah at David Adams Card World and his question actually ties into another comment that I saw come in uh from oh gosh where did it go I want to find this common I want I want to tie these two things oh yeah Shane O’Brien here says yeah Bryson is the guy to own right now and David yger wanted to know why did Mike choose Bryson dambo as a PC player if you could address that and then we’ll get to the Vintage Spotlight right yeah David and I have actually talked about this before um I chose Bryson to Shambo for so many reasons plea I I I could easily talk for an hour about this I won’t but Bryson a Shambo first hit the scene uh very in as a very hyped up rookie uh he won the US amateur and another M uh I forget what event it was but he basically came into the PGA as kind of a star and he won pretty quickly and as as you started to learn about him and see him on TV he was kind of nicknamed The Scientist he was talking with his CAD about angles that he’d be on his back swing um air pressure humidity levels uh calculating everything in his mind you know deciding on half Club lengths whatever based on time of day and how uh dried out the greens were getting um the kind of stuff that Phil Nicholson talks about and used to talk about a lot but with a very a more calculated approach and I was drawn to that as an engineer I I just thought that was very interesting like I I understood some of the terms he saying but for him to be applying it to a golf swing just blew my mind so that’s where I first kind of was drawn to him um and then when the pandemic hit and golf kind of took a Hiatus for a few months Bryson had already kind of started hitting the gym because when he first hit the PJ T he was pretty scrawny but he kind of went all in on the weights and the protein powder and everything and he put on 40 pounds of muscle in four or five months like it was absolutely obscene and when he came back he was people weren’t calling him the scientist anymore they they were you know calling him the Meathead like he was bombing it he would he almost Drew of the green on a par five at one course and before his his Drive turned around and kind of like cheered up the crowd you know putting his arms up in the air and everybody got all fired up and pumped up and it just was one of the most electric things that I had seen on a golf course you know barring what Tiger Woods did many times but I I was just drawn to him because of the excitement basically and we could we could talk more about Bryson because there’s been a lot of recent developments or do you want to move on yeah no well we’re going to bring Leighton up right now so let’s do that let’s bring on Leighton for what we call the Vintage Spotlight segment he joins us just about every Saturday and uh and I always I always ask our guests to come with a question so Mike will get that but let’s bring him up on stage Leighton welcome back to another segment of the Vintage Spotlight how you doing today great thanks for having me Jerry nice to meet you Mike nice to meet you Le good good good all right well let’s jump right into it Mike uh did you come with a question for Mr Leon Sheldon yeah you bet now Leon um I don’t know if you’ve ever collected golf cards um I assume not so my my question is what factors would encourage you to start building a golf cart collection well it’s a great question and so first you should never assume uh secondly um I actually do collect golf but in the sense of you know when I when I try try to get things for my PC whether it be it’s a card mic or if it’s a photo or or really a piece of memorabilia I try to have it be important important to me I mean I I hope it’s important of course in the course of sports history and history at large um and so in terms of golf the few cards that I have are Bobby Jones cards um I don’t remember the grades offand but I definitely know like they’re low to mid-grade um I think that my Lambert and Butler Bobby Jones is higher grade than my sport king Bobby Jones um but nonetheless they’re two cards and you know I have a couple Tiger Woods cards I believe I have um a couple Jack Nichols cards that are signed like his 81 Donis but if you’re asking me what it would take to if you will widen my collection uh I think number one education so for example I thought about before I came on here like if I had a real golf collector Card Collector excuse me that knew what they were doing they’re very Savvy like I can tell you what I’m looking for forget about it if it exists can I find it but I really like collecting early exhibit postcards so I just bought myself a really nice Jack Johnson SGC 5 off of eBay I already have some really nice baseball I already have the mic in so I was thinking Mike m you know if there was a nice early Jo um early Bobby Jones whether I I don’t think it’s an exhibit but a postcard I would be into that so my point is I don’t really know a lot about golf cards so if there is a place to go and maybe you’re the place I don’t know um but number one that’s educ then number two I think if you play the game you are going to eventually tend to want to be interested in now you might want to just get um Tiger Wood’s cap or his T-shirt versus like an autograph or a card I get that but I don’t really follow golf closely enough to know like how the numbers are trending I myself play tennis um and I found myself like looking like all right how do I get the best tennis card what is that that was my point about playing it if you go to a golf course I got think people are there some of those people would want to collect gol cards yeah I just got to jump in M because I made that exact same comment earlier and I was watching I’m sorry no it’s okay because we we were talking about a lot what Mike had said Laton was that so many people that collect cards already play golf but how many people that collect cards are hockey players or football players or basketball or baseball and maybe you’re playing some slow pitch now or some beer league hockey but you know everybody seems to play golf so I thought that was I think I think you’re you’re we’re all kind of thinking that same way I think that that makes a lot of sense but Mike I want to just expand on your question a little bit for Leighton because Leighton you know growing up you know through the the late 70s the 80s you heard about Jack Nicholas all the time you know the the what do they call the Golden Bear or just the bear I don’t I’m not sure which one but Jack Nicholas I mean he was everywhere and don’t you think Leighton that like isn’t he kind of the Mickey Mantle of golf but just he has no cards until 1971 uh a tobacco style card would Leon I guess my question for you and Mike I hope you don’t mind me kind of piggybacking on it but Leighton if Jack Nicholas had a library of cards that resembled say a Bill Russell I I’m picking basketball because they don’t have you know Bill Russell only has like what eight playing Days cards don’t you think that those would be humongous in our hobby uh I not only agree with you Jeremy but I also think it actually hurts for example with Jack Nicholas collectors in the sense of if there was a card every year for 15 years 18 years there’d be a run in the registry people be excited but when there’s actually only a few of something what I’ve learned in our hobby it doesn’t really matter if it’s a card or if it’s a piece of memorabilia sometimes Rarity or scarcity doesn’t always work in your favor and I think it’s kind of funky that there is some Jack Nicholas cards but there’s not that many considering how many Tiger Woods cards there are it’s kind of nutty um and I really do agree with your comparison about you know the mantle era because to me right Bobby Jones is like the Ruth era Tiger Woods is like the MJ era even though Tiger Woods came you know pretty much after I guess um but nonetheless uh you know that’s what I was talking about with education Mike I I follow golf closely enough to know about you know your collection with Shambo and like you know other Bryce and like other guys but like I still don’t know enough about the sport versus the cards as Jeremy was saying considering what I do for a living it’s kind of interesting I don’t really know why that’s the case but um that’s that’s the scoop well there’s just not a lot of it out there I suppose and that’s part so it’s you know but guys like Mike who are creating content about golf he’s got a lot of his his golf collector buddies here in the chat I mean it’s those guys that I think are you know it’s like the responsibility kind of Lies with you guys because no one else like it’s one of those things that no one’s going to do unless you do you know maybe there’s some people that’ll come out rise up and you’ll you’ll get to know them but I think it’s so great that there’s golf card communities and there’s golf card collectors and they’re they’re as passionate about it as many other sport car collectors are about the sports that they collect so I think it’s just awesome and I’m glad we’re we’re doing this episode too to shine even more light on the golf segment Leon did you come with any question that you’d like to ask Mike yourself well I kind of asked it already is is there a Bobby Jones postcard exhibit type postcard that you’re aware of of and if so do you have one for sale I definitely don’t have one for sale I’ve uh cleared out most of my vintage cards to be frank um I actually don’t when you say postcard you mean literally like a novel like a postcard that you would mail to your family back home yes so I’m not sure if you’re familiar with any other sports like baseball exhibit postcards that were started in the 20s but all you know went all the way up to like the 60s they were very very very popular like in vening machines I don’t know if it was a nickel or a penny or dime um but a lot of those times Mike people didn’t actually use them as postcards and to be clear I actually enjoy when they uses postcards because it kind of you know it’s took a little snapshot of History uh but nonetheless I didn’t know if something like that existed for Bobby Jones I don’t know for sure I know someone who would know though so I’ll touch base I’ll actually mention his name uh John Morton who’s one of my my friends who’s huge in a vintage um he would absolutely know so I’ll send him a DM just I really appreciate it let me know love to the scoop well we have a a viewer in the chat right now Ryan says there’s no postcards of Bobby Jones that I know of like pre-war baseball postcards but that said let’s not let that stop you Mike from reaching out to uh Mr morn and asking I forget the first name you said and asking him just to like let’s make sure because uh could be some interesting results there all right so before we wrap up the vinis spotlight segment as we’ve been doing I want to let everybody know and and just sort of announce again if you haven’t heard yet Laton Sheldon and myself we’ve launched a new podcast a new YouTube channel it’s a spin-off of this segment right here called the vendage spotlight podcast and it’s available on all your podcast platforms it we have the YouTube channel as well again it’s called vintage Spotlight and if you would be kind enough and if you’re interested please go check that out subscribe to the YouTube channel uh subscribe to the podcast we greatly appreciate it we are we just on audio just dropped our second episode yesterday and and that will be launched on or dropped on YouTube uh on Monday episode number two we’ve had some great response so far to the first one very grateful for everybody who’s taken a moment to to listen to it or to watch it lat anything you’d like to say on that to the to the audience uh well I’d like to add you know once again uh to what you were saying Jeremy I really appreciate everyone who’s either tuning in or thinking about tuning in and checking out the new podcast it’s been a a lot of fun and Jeremy I just wanted to mention this because you don’t know this yet but since you’ve dropped the audio and listen let’s be clear we’re getting things started things are going to be like this in the beginning we were hoping to drop the the video component on YouTube today couple things led us to to do it on Monday Jeremy I had a few people already say to me Lon I can’t find the second episode the video I’d really like to see and I don’t want to spoil it for people who didn’t see anything yet in terms of like the audio at least check it out but it’s worth checking out the video component of this particular episode if you get a moment and that’ll be dropping on Monday that’s right all right well thank you everybody for allowing us to to to just let you all know that again thanks for your time on that uh thank you Leighton for joining for the Vintage Spotlight segment here on Sports Cards live Mike thanks for coming with a question for Leighton L guys also Leighton does have his own podcast Trading Card therapy check that out and follow him on Instagram Leonor Sheldon and just _ collect Leon thanks so much let you get back to your evening thanks for having me Jeremy and Mike it was really great connecting with you and I’m looking forward to seeing what information you have about that Bobby Jones stuff you bet Lon likewise great to meet you all right good stuff okay so with that being done and again thanks to Leighton and Mike to you let’s do some more comments there’s lots to get through Mike uh the chat’s lit up right now by the way I think part of that is your fault Mike because you brought so many of your passionate collector buddies which I’m very grateful for of course but let’s just go through a couple comments Shane O’Brien said I got lucky buying Bryson’s card when he went to Liv people were selling for pennies yelia says as a collector of golf cards I am excited for Liv cards Bryson’s recent success along with his Persona is the most interesting thing to happen to pro golf in years well that’s just that’s really great to hear James win says I love Sports Illustrated golf cards got me the Tiger Woods kid rookie card and some Michelle we yeah you know we’ve seen a lot of attention on on on women’s sports especially the WNBA recently but there’s also ladies golf and Michelle we is a name I’m very familiar with is she Mike is she a a a an athlete who is widely collected by your fellow golf collector Community I don’t know about widely collected but she’s definitely collected um LPGA players are inserted within the PGA products so you’d get the men’s and women’s leagues all in one box in fact we may open some of some ladies later on um Michelle we is from Hawaii uh a friend of mine a hobby friend of mine who lives in Hawaii is a an avid Michelle we collector and so when I came across her super fractor that was a PSA 10 auction on eBay I sent it over to him he won the auction uh he’s forever grateful and I’m going to make sure to remind him of that when I want one of his cards um but yeah Michelle is definitely CED Robert Scott says mike do you collect golf cart sorry golf memorabilia as well like signed golf balls Flags Etc Great question I do not um I was interested in the 2019 Tiger Woods Masters flag autograph I never got one but that would be the only memorabilia vintage uh says here TV ratings for liver terrible team play is a gimmick my question for you on this Mike is number one is can you corroborate that first point and do you agree with the second Point well the terrible TV ratings I think is just objective you know you just look at the numbers I don’t think a lot of people are tuning in per se uh team play being a gimmick I don’t I don’t know if I believe in that quite as much because when you look at like the Ryder Cup and the President’s Cup uh it’s one of the most electric exciting golf that you can have um whether that’s because it’s every second year or if it’s because team golf has potential to be exciting I don’t know for sure quick quick announcement everybody rage is in the building yet again everybody rage is in the building what up rage Joe perau says what thoughts does Mike have on Tiger Woods autographs how much does he anticipate tiger signing in the years to come and are his autographs coming out of any current or recent products uh Tiger Woods autographs come out of most Upper Deck golf products or even multisport products like Goodwin Champions uh metal Universe Champions um Tiger Woods you know I know nothing about his contract with Upper Deck but um he’s been signing with them for 23 years and I don’t see any signs that he would stop uh whether they have stockpiled some of his sticker autographs um or if he is actively signing every year I don’t know for sure but when it comes to uh SP authentic there are always on-card autographs um some of the other sets are stickers so you know I don’t know exactly what the future holds but there’s no reason to think it’s it’s Bleak what about um thanks for that Colin Murray says live is not on TV it’s on YouTube but then Shane O’Brien says live is on CW I don’t know what CW is can you just explain this so when Liv first um was first released or they when they first started their their um their first season uh they did not have a TV deal so it was actually aired for free on YouTube the um production value was terrible uh it was not enjoyable to watch the only reason I would tune in and I’d tune in for 15 or 20 minutes was just to see Brooks kka or Bryson Shambo or somebody that I wanted to see but I I had to turn it off after 20 minutes because it was intolerable since then they have had a deal and um you know I had my PVR recording them and I would I would be able to stand more than 20 minutes once they kind of fix things up okay okay thanks for thanks for that uh and then Mark here says it’s really unfortunate that you’re correct I guess the mic is correct Upper Deck lost the rights to produce a lot of star player cards and is that because they left the PGA to go to live Mike is that is that is that the sole reason or is there more to it I think there’s more to it I mean in general um upper deck’s golf products are often missing many of the the stars and and I’m talking current stars that absolutely should be in the product and it’s because they have to uh they have to sign each of the players individ they they do have a deal with the PGA but that is for the rights to the PGA logo and the PGA name um in on top of that agreement they also have agreements with each individual player so we’re missing ludig aberer Scotty Sheffer Xander schafle some of the big names in golf who just don’t have cards and it’s definitely you know upsetting now I don’t think that upper deck is skipping out on players uh because they’ve gone over to live for the most part their recent releases aren’t including many Live players but they do include some and Taylor G is one example uh he was kind of the player of the year in the first season of of Liv and he somehow made it into the 2024 upper DEET golf products I think maybe Pat Perez is other so uh I don’t think that’s the cause okay okay no good good to know uh this comment came in a while ago from Shane O’Brien when when Leighton was asking about you know where to go for information and Shane says Mike is the place to go and that I I’m guessing that he’s really referring to maybe your Instagram account or accounts and the fondling cardboard podcast let’s make sure let’s let’s call out everybody Mike’s fondling cardboard podcast I’m a previous guest of that podcast as are many other great people in our hobby so definitely be checking out again fondling cardboard podcast and it’s it’s mostly on it is on it’s not a YouTube thing really it is a podcast only and I I confirmed that myself before the show Mike I want to say hello to yets is in the house what’s up yets and the professor says with Mike’s definition of vintage for golf will the Vintage Spotlight YouTube channel help clarify I I don’t know Professor we haven’t talked about that at this point rage says if my memory serves me correct golf also make young makes Young Guns as well I remember uh sorting through some of those Mike you know Young Guns and hockey are very important they are you know the almost the main rookie card the most it’s hard to say what’s important it’s different to everybody but let’s say the most widely collected rookie card in hockey is the Young Gun has that brand has it extended out into the Golf Community as an important card or or maybe not because of the lack of consistent releases can you kind of fill that out for us of course and I’ll have to give a shout out to the episode I did with you Jeremy on funneling cardboard uh you and I had a really great discussion about this um but for our listeners today um there’s a lot of hype right now about golf Young Guns so I would I would certainly say there’s some Buzz around it and they’re being collected and they’re being chased um I I do hope that that continues because I whatever anything that will draw attention to golf products and get people excited I’m on board with it now for me I personally am not collecting Young Guns because there’s no Tiger Woods Young Gun in 2001 upper deck there were a young gun insert set of I think it was 15 or 20 golfers and there was more than 15 or 20 rookies in that release and so you know upper deck if there’s anybody listening shoot me a DM and just if you were around in 2001 or or when the set was being designed why wasn’t there a young gun for each of the rookies if there was a Tiger Woods Young Gun it would have completely changed the name in our niche of the hobby um I think the people that will be drawn to Young Guns for golf are going to have two commonalities they’re going to be familiar with hockey so that they value that brand recognition and they’re likely to be probably the younger side of our collectors uh who who don’t really care about the 2001 time frame and they’re just kind of looking 2001 or 2021 and onwards and so if upper can continue to release uh the Young with every year or or at least with every golf set release uh then you know you may get some of those guys yeah you know if only they could go back and I I have to I’m thinking as you’re speaking I’m wondering I’m thinking to myself you know if Upper Deck you know as a company what are their biggest what are their biggest regrets and one of them might just be not not calling that original Tiger Woods rookie a young gun I wonder because like you said that could have changed the future of golf cards if they did that uh totally totally it could be a totally different landscape right now yelia says Young Guns is held back by lack of players and releases I that that makes a lot of sense to me that’s kind of what I was thinking of myself right there Tyler teapot says just followed you on Instagram Mike so very very nice there teapot yelia says Mike I collect cards that show Michael Jordan playing golf do you have a favorite MJ golf card or and do you collect Michael Jordan golf cards Mike that’s a great question question there Yia what do you have to say Mike yeah I do I’m trying to find one I had some cards prepared and I um I didn’t have my MJ collection but actually Michael Jordan golf is a lane within my collection I am attempting to collect all of the Michael Jordan golf cards um with a bit of a Twist because a lot of my collecting lanes are highend and I I want to chase the lowest serial numbered parallel or the shiniest version of the and with the Michael Jordan Lane for some reason I don’t know why I want it to be as barebones as basic and raw as I can and so there are some cool Michael Jordan golf cards from the 2012 2013 2014 kind of uh Upper Deck golf releases where they had uh non-golfers as part of the set like uh actually teapot mentioned Jerry he’s fighting tonight against Alex Pereira good luck Jerry um there was Randy coocher who’s a fighter uh who has a golf cart from around that era um and anyways there was parallels so you could get a green out of 99 you could get a red out serial numbered out of 10 um a couple years ago I missed out on a Michael Jordan golf card serial numbered out of 10 on the auction my bid just wasn’t quite enough and perhaps that’s the reason why I’m just chasing the base stuff now yeah could be could be um a couple comments here Mark says I don’t know if I’m alone in this or not but I wish the El PGA had their own he means line of cards instead I mean it is a different uh different sort of League I suppose what do you showing us what are you showing us there that’s a Michael jard yeah that’s a 1998 uh Space Jam card oh very neat very very neat Mark santui wants to know Mike here will there be a lot of golf card collectors at the Cleveland National next month will you be there so I won’t be there um you know I I would like to go someday card shows is not a huge part of my hobby participation I just enjoy spending time with my cards um and also you know money’s tight my wife’s not working right now um and so you know the whole family is being funded by my salary and um and and then if I were to go to a show like that there’s un you know what are the likelihood of me stumbling into cards that I’m looking for or people that I know in my Niche now my hobby uh network is growing and it’s going to include a lot of people who don’t focus on golf cards and so I would have love to go and see all of these faces in person and shake hands and make memories and so I hope to one day um now one person I know uh I I know there certainly will be golf collectors going but in some sort of sad news one of the most esteemed golf cart collectors that I know I I love raving about his Instagram page and I I’ve always enjoyed looking at his cards he’s a curator of basically Tiger Wood’s nicest cards that exist uh is basically getting out of the Hobby and is selling his you know massive valued collection and so uh he is going there and I’m not sure if his intent to go there is to say sort of one last harah or if he’s made a predetermined deal to sell some of those cards but um you know I would have loved to go to at least see him yeah well there you go well too bad you won’t be there but maybe maybe sometime down the road as golf grows in the hobby maybe you’ll make it out there one day stook says my first Johnny Bench autograph was on a Senior PGA pairings guide and course map Johnny was playing in the event very cool stooks very cool okay so I want to we got to switch it up because we got a lot to get through still and um we’re kind of I can tell we’re we’re we’re we’re taking some time here but this is really interesting stuff so first of all I want to totally change the topic and I want to ask you about the Arizona Coyotes leaving Arizona the Phoenix area again I went through that when that same franchise when it was previously called the Winnipeg Jets left Winnipeg in 96 Mike what is it what are you going through because Mike doesn’t only collect golf cards guys he collects Arizona coyote cards he collects Steve Nash cards he has a personal connection with Steve Nash among some other things but Mike what what are you going through right now considering that like not only like that the franchise well the the players moved the hockey Department moved to Utah but Utah is considering like a brand new franchise with its own history starting right now so the that franchise is that that old Winnipeg Jets Arizona Coyotes franchise it’s like dead as far as I can tell I don’t think it’s coming back is my are my thoughts what are you going through based on that right now just emotionally and as a sports fan so well first and foremost a little bit of denial and Frank like even as you said that I’m sitting here trying to rebut you know in my mind think it’s not dead no of course it’s not dead um and and and that’s why I gave fingers crossed is that yes Utah is gonna have their own history books and all that but there’s also a lot of kind of contractual stuff that’s happening still um and uh the owner of the coyotes uh basically gave up his rights to um to restart the franchise with in the next 5 years and the history books and all that were sort of tied to him as an individual so now that he’s kind of forfeited it I actually don’t know if they die or if they go to the PGA and if somebody else decides to purchase that rights that maybe maybe the books and and records and not that we have a ton of banners or whatever to put in the rafters but all that stuff maybe that can stay with them um or maybe now that he gave it up maybe it will all shift over to Utah I don’t know but other than denial um it’s been hard for me to really process it I’ve just I’ve been continuing buying coyotes cards you know current uh well not a current anymore I guess past coyote star Clayton Keller there’s his rookie autograph um I I’m still buying cards I don’t know if that’s my way of therapy um as a fan it’s it’s a shock like my when the before the coyotes even showed up before the Jets arrived in Phoenix was my firstever hockey game it was in Phoenix Arizona and it was the road runners and it was just before the coyotes were about to arrive and play their first game and they were hyping it up they were selling all the coyote swag and from that minute forward that was my team even though I spent most of my life growing up in Vancouver area and BC and Alberta Canada um everywhere I went I was the only coyotes fan and it kind of became my identity um I loved going to games whether they won or lost because just for the experience for people to give you the crooked eyes to cheer be the only person in the stadium cheering when the coyot scored it was just my it was it was what honestly the only reason I even enjoyed hockey and so now I don’t know because I haven’t the season hasn’t even started to make it it even worse like just to rub salt in the in the wound this past season was kind of one of my biggest fandom uh years other than like the 2012 uh playoff run where they made the conference final but I uh I spent a lot of time at home because we’ve got a baby and and um I watched a lot of the games this year basically everyone and when the news broke it was just devastating I’m sure man I listen I this smile is not because I’m laughing it’s more because just the tragedy that we both went through it with the same the exact same organization and I remember being at their last game ever it was April 28th 1996 a playoff game against Detroit me and my buddies were like the last guys to leave the arena we were we were heartbroken I remember crying I literally shed tears because that was my team my whole life it’s all I knew I’ve been going to games since probably 1977 when they were in the wh you know that that other league that merged with the NHL in 1980 or so and uh man I just want to say like my heart does go out to you as a true fan of a team it’s not fun when we lose a professional team it’s uh it really does hurt we we identify with these teams we enjoy them they become part of the part of our story of where we’re from and you know part of your identity like you said so sorry I’m sorry for I’m sorry for your loss I truly am it’s crazy you know it’s not we’re not talking about a human being but we’re talking about something that we are still very passionate about so sorry to hear that okay we have a whole bunch of topic we’re gonna do one more topic and then we’re g to do the giveaway for the pack boxpack of 2024 SP game used golf now you’re not going to receive this unop we are going to open it on the show so so what then we have to decide Mike do we want to open it and then do the giveaway I don’t think so I think we do the giveaway and then we open the cards right agree yeah we’ll do that but before we do that I want to learn more about now about you and fondling the fondling cardboard podcast which again we are getting a lot of great questions about golf cards here tonight guys but Mike’s the man he’s here tonight with us but you can certainly follow his podcast fondling cardboard his Instagram account is the what okay so you’ve got the fondling cardboard Instagram account but you also have is it the Golf Card Collector that’s correct the golf CF collector at the golf cart the Golf Card Collector is another Instagram so you guys should all if you’re finding this interesting make sure you’re following his Instagrams check out his podcast of course as well so the podcast fondling cardboard what was the Catalyst or the inspiration for you to get started producing content you know it’s actually not supposed to be a podcast about golf cards but because that’s my main area of focus in the hobby it has a huge flavor of golf cards um but the real purpose the the mission behind funneling cardboard is to reflect on myself why I collect um almost like a a therapy session and then basically become sort of an improved collector and that could be anywhere from how I’m spending my time in the hobby whether that’s using it as a distraction or actually embracing and enjoying my time or whether that’s choosing which cards to collect and you know talking with guests and reflecting on what I’m building is helpful for me to be you know conscious about what I’m doing um and and then a big piece of it too is bringing on guests who have kind of a similar approach and drawing stories out of them that not only will help them you know get their words out and get their stories out but will help me again learn so I guess the whole mission is really just reflection on myself my guests and how to how to learn and grow and what was it though that made you record the first episode like what what was the Catalyst to record episode one were you bored one day were you listening to other podcasts and thought I should I can do one and bring my angle like I’m trying to what was your inspiration did was it another content Creator was it please just just I I want to dig a bit deeper into that so circling back to when I first started collecting golf cards I felt this draw to do something to educate to to contribute to the content landscape somehow about golf carts and I I was trying to kind of do something on my own whether that’s Instagram posts whether that was you know I I filmed a few box breaks and random stuff and uploaded it to YouTube and that wasn’t really fulfilling like I I needed something that had dialogue stories a deeper kind of approach um a friend of mine I think you might have mentioned him earlier in the episode Paul hickey uh from no offseason uh Sports and or uh no from the sports card strategy show and no off season.com uh Paul’s a friend of mine and he said hey like you you know a lot about golf cards and I’m trying to do these different kind of series on different sports so he said let’s collaborate because he knew I wanted to do something and he had this PL form already set up and I knew nothing about how to create a podcast so he and I um basically we we we had sort of this agenda and we sat down to talk about golf carts and an hour hour and a half whatever just blew by like this like it was so easy to talk because it was a passionate subject for me so we said great when are we doing episode two um I absolutely love doing and we called it the golf card strategy show uh and it’s still available on YouTube go check it out you can see all the episodes still on there um he and I are still friends uh we I think did about nine episodes together and what kind of became obvious a at that point after spending you know couple dozen hours talking about golf cards together was that we had different kind of focuses you know I I was more interested in why I’m collecting wasn’t all that interested in selling my cards if I was there was kind of a need like a reason I’m selling it you know I don’t like the card anymore or I wanted to buy something bigger and he had a much more investor flipping kind of approach and it it it kind of there was a there was no tension between us as friends but there was tension in the conversation about which direction it was going I might go down a rabbit hole about collecting and then he’d try and bring it back to investing and um so we we sort of decided you know what we’ve done a lot of content on golf carts maybe you know I’ll just feature occasionally when there’s a special occasion that revolves around Golf and and I felt this motivation then at that point to learn how the podcasting platforms work and to produce my own content that was very collector Centric okay no great great answer that’s kind of what I was what I was looking for so good to hear you’ve been you’ve been continuing on with it we had a question just come in from The Merchant of cool I think is a very timely question he says what have you learned about collecting since starting the podcast I’ve learned that you need to have this community around you um Jeremy I think this is maybe be something that we were planning on talking about um since I started the since I started the podcast I I’ve been getting DMS from people I’ve I’ve been getting you know comments on on feedback through the the different platforms and it’s made me realize that a big part of collecting although I’m I’m sitting in my basement right now fondling my cards my you know spending time one-on-one with my cards there’s still this network of people like-minded people who are just like me who love different types of golf carts even and and from starting the podcast and just kind of putting my name out there it’s helped me build new relationships I never would have reached out to and I never would have connected with before and we’ve got group chats where not only we are we talking about cards but we talk about the sport where when something crazy’s happening on on a Sunday down the stretch suddenly the chat blows up and and my phone blows up and and I might not be tuning in and it’s awesome because then it if I’m out and about or if I happen to be working or whatever I can re remind myself to tune in and follow the action and so it’s actually helped me become a better fan of the sport um in the golf cards and memorabilia Facebook group it’s kind of helped I I’ve learned that without pushing without pushing your content without contributing to the community who’s going to especially in such a niche Niche subject so I make a big effort to um to post asking to see people’s cards even if I’m not looking to buy any cards I have like a an automatic feature within the Facebook group that posts weekly saying what are your your wins show us the cards that you got picked up and and people it was slow to kind of catch on but now every week people are posting pictures of the golf cards they picked up and and then it’s it’s going Beyond just myself because now I’m seeing people that I know from the golf cart community community liking and commenting on other people people I know in the golf cart community and it’s so that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned is that you know you can collect on your own but it can be lonely so get out there and build a community yeah that’s a great and it seems like you’re you’re doing a great job uh at that for sure so congratulations and and Kudos and keep going man keep on doing it because I it does seem to me like and here Merchant cool says amen Mike a niche like golf card collecting only grows with efforts like that and that’s what I was just about to say is that you’re a key part of growing it and uh a it becomes somewhat of a responsibility not not one that that that you know it’s one you could walk away from if you wanted to but I don’t think you’re that kind of person I think you you like doing it and uh and you know that there’s people that appreciate what you’re doing so keep it up man that’s that’s really good okay why don’t we do the giveaway for this pack of cards right here and no we’re gonna take one I want I got but because this is this is an upper neck product let’s talk about upper deck briefly and then we’re going to do the giveaway and open it up but my question for you on about upper deck is you know how has upper deck been doing in your opinion with the PGA products like this one here U and this is this a this is this licensed by PGA I think you said it was yes I don’t see any PGA uh logo on this pack itself but maybe they’re on the cards we’ll find out shortly but that said considering they’ve lost a few big names as of late but they are working on their golf line how is upper deck how are they um addressing the golf cart Community with their products are are you guys pleased with what’s coming on tell us about the program and how you feel they’re doing well first and foremost you know I have to Express gratitude because upper deck is the only company out there that’s made golf a priority in any way even though there’s not annual releases and it seems to come in these waves or these batches like in 2021 and in 2024 there’s three sets in each of those years rather than kind of spreading it out you know there there’s some short fallings and I’m sure I’m going to get into some of them but first and foremost like even though things could be better it exists we have golf carts so I’m thankful for that some of the Innovations are really well received so de has had these um course Relic cards where they actually took sand from TPC I think it was TPC Saw Grass um I might be wrong on the actual course but they take sand from a bunker and they they embed it into a little uh plastic capsule and they put it in the card obviously it’s like a thick memorabilia patch card sort of thing Innovations Like That You Don’t See in other sports and that is super cool um some other amazing things that I’ve seen from upper deck and and that some of my peers really enjoy are the like precious metal gems and the star rubies because a lot of those ’90s inserts were unavailable for new sports like Golf and so now we’re starting to get you know this is my one of my main PCS is Matthew wolf you know there’s his green his red P PMG there’s this green PMG obviously out of 90 and out of out of u 10 and then there’s his one of one PMG the purple um we’re able to get these amazing cards and that’s a you know a Skybox product but it’s it’s Upper Deck um and you know here’s another example like to have this super fractor style of thing upper deck’s probably going to cringe if I call it that you know it’s it’s it’s a golden Treasures card um and another one of one of and this is Will zala’s Taurus rookie card cards like this really get me fired up and I you know if they manage to fill in the gaps on their checklist I they they would get a straight A grade however that last thing I just said is a big deal you know so if they the the biggest complaint and I’ve actually made multiple posts in the past saying what kind of a what kind of feedback could we give to Upper Deck uh what what what could improve golf carts and the thing that comes up every single time and it’s usually commented by multiple people is that when I look when I’m watching the event when I’m watching the golf tournament this weekend usually there’s two or three guys near the top of the list they don’t have cards and they aren’t just no buies they’re proper stars of the game right now and I can’t buy their cards that’s a problem yeah okay hopefully they’re working on that doing what they can I’m sure they want to make the best products they can uh with that we have one of their recent products here SP game used 2024 golf this is one it’s a box but it’s also a pack I believe one pack per box five cards per pack so we’re gonna open this up but first we’re going to give the contents away we don’t know what’s in here yet this thing is still Factory sealed we’re going to open it but first we’re going to do a sports cards live giveaway here guys and the way the sports cards live giveaways work is that you need to put something into the chat a hashtag into the chat so I’m gonna put it on the screen in a moment and then you guys look what you look at what you see you and and type it into the chat the hashtag and everything and here we go we’re going to start collecting comments right now there you go hash uper deck put that into the chat you guys and once we have enough entries we are going to run the giveaway and we’re gonna find a winner we’re gonna open up this pack right here and then I will ship this to the winner the entries are starting to come in make sure you do the hashtag and upper deck everybody oh yeah tons of mookie Chelson that’s a funny thank you so much mookie I appreciate that that that hashtag that’s hilar hilarious thanks moo appreciate it buddy well we’re waiting for a couple uh the professor asked does leaf produce golf cards and if so does Mike collect them uh Shane O’Brien let us know that they do but let’s go to you uh uh oh and you’re showing one right now so Mike does have a leaf golf cart right there Jeremy m is thanking me for continuing to put out quality content well thank you Jeremy M for being here I appreciate that comment uh very much just going to go to the bottom everyone’s putting in their hash uper deck into the chat right now all right we have I’m just checking we have we have over a hundred people watching right now that’s about 60 on YouTube over 40 on X and then we have additional on Instagram uh Instagram and uh LinkedIn and Facebook as well Mike can you hold up that leaf card one more time we’re going to Spotlight it put it right in the middle of the camera if you can there you go for the professor asked to see it’s a John daily card it’s got a piece of memorabilia in it right there very cool okay we have one more entry that’s come in guys we’re going to do the draw right now are you guys ready here we go draw no more entries let’s let the system pick a winner it’s slowing down Shane O’Brien is the winner you you know Shane O’Brien Mike I do and he’s gonna be really pumped yeah ah there you go he’s a true golf collector I’m guessing is that right he is yeah one in a prime example of someone who is an avid golfer I don’t know if he just recently got into golf cards but is just super enthusiastic about it so I’m pumped to the Shane one all right Shane O’Brien congratulations guys let’s open up this pack right now and we’re GNA send it out to you Shane I’ll send it out to you so Shane if you can send me a message on Instagram or an email uh I will send out the content of this pack to you oh he’s excited he’s excited lfg we’re not gonna read what that means but he’s excited all right Shane we’re GNA open it that’s part of the part of the giveaway is opening it here live on the show so let’s see what we got and the nice thing is that Mike you’re going to be able to kind of uh explain to us what we have here there’s something else in this oh okay so we’ve got a little insert here collect the world’s greatest memorabilia upper deex store.com so I’m gonna send that to Mike or to Shane O’Brien as well uh comments coming in though yeah Victor says Tiger Woods Auto incoming that would be amazing stale prod tiger is the goat tiger slim will never be repeated and Mark says mark this is a great comment he says Mike said it right at least we have cards so that’s great all right let’s open this up guys I’m just gonna slice the top of it off there we go I’m gonna try and keep it on screen at all at all even though this isn’t like a paid and I want to keep it on oh there’s an auto right on the top here that’s like I I’ve heard of them I’ll tell you that much we’ll come back we don’t hold on I I don’t want you guys to see what it is so I’m just going to keep it vertical there so you guys can’t see what I got all right let’s see oh spe there should be ACH ahead guys I’ve heard of all these all these golfers I’ve heard of except for that one okay so we’re GNA start there’s four it said five cards per pack but there’s only oh there are five okay oh that’s really cool I don’t know who this is but his name is Chris DeMarco and that’s a piece of something there all right let’s hold on I just want to I want to keep the does it tell us what that is uh just says golf memorability so Chris DeMarco that’s for you Shane O’Brien next card that you are going to get is this one right here Fred Couples I guess it’s like a a base card card number 28 Fred Couples so her to him the next one is Vince whey I’m not familiar with Vince wayy but it’s a rookie and it’s not a Young Guns but it is a rookie Mike are you familiar with Vince Wy there are definitely some golfers in in this set that I’m not familiar fam with there there’s some there’s some European golfers there’s some rookies uh kudos to Upper Deck for trying to bring in some upand comers that we might not know about so maybe we’ll know about him a few years from now all right okay well then let’s let’s do the slow reveal for these I don’t want to yeah I’m just gonna have to use this card Shane O’Brien and let me see which way I want to go okay we’ll go that way we’ll go that way this is a horizontal card here we go ANUK soram Julie iner Rachel heck tour gear triple I don’t think it’s numbered uh no not numbered oh let’s get to the autra what let’s get to the autograph you saw it no here’s the here’s the LA I’m gonna go quick now boom Oh Baby Norman Greg Norman ink drers do you mind if I just say something about this please so game Upper Deck SP game used um is a high-end product where as you saw a box only contains one pack with a couple of hits um that are typically sticker autographs which a lot of people aren’t huge fans of understandably um there’s two styles of cards in the set that are not sticker autographs and you got one of them Shane and that’s called the ink driver where they take a manufactured piece of metal to basically resemble like a driver face and they embed it into the card and it’s autograph so that’s a pretty that was Greg Norman was it yeah Greg Norman that is awesome that is amazing so we got a good hit we got a good hit out of the pack did we did we did the other style of cards that uh doesn’t have a sticker autograph is called uh leaderboard autograph so that they’ve got the person’s name spelled out in letters like you’ve seen in other sports where LeBron might have L and another card with an e and another card with a b um and they kind of look like leaderboard numbers and letters that they would be switching out on the golf course um those ones in my opinion aren’t as aesthetic they’re not as nice looking so this is probably one of the cooler cards you can get out of this set well and I’m just you know this is like like I don’t know what that material is but it looks very metallic and the autograph is it’s it’s on the card beautifully and what he’s got a pretty cool autograph it’s all it’s all mained it’s a great looking card and it’s Greg Norman I mean I’ve you know heard of him for for decades now so pretty pretty cool that was fun Shane O’Brien I need your address so I can get these shipped excuse me get this shipped out to you Shane O’Brien said he’s a young player on tour must be talking about the the wh character Vince wayy maybe that’s who he was referring to that was the only guy that we had hadn’t really heard of yeah James says three Legends on the on the woman’s card that was pretty cool the shark says James yeah very good lots of shark comments on here Merchant cool says That’s player signed James wi says do you think he’s a top 10 golfer of all time speaking of Greg Norman you’re shaking your head Mike as in no yeah Merchant of cool says no no so he was he was along those lines of like maybe even a step below Nicholson um definitely a major winner and important player in the sport um he had a bit of a controversial nature and he was the guy trying to push that professional golf league with Team approach and was finally successful he was the president of Liv golf I don’t know if Greg Norman is still the president of Liv golf but he was basically the poster boy for for Liv Golf and with all of that controversy we talked about earlier some people love him some people hate him sweet Norman Auto says all Elite cards and games welcome to the show all Elite and Joe perau says can Mike think of any golfers who enjoy a sort of Niche popularity in the golfing World maybe someone who hasn’t necessarily won a bunch of Majors but who the fans still adore Well Ricky Fowler Ricky Fowler is like the definition of that um never won a major limited number of wins even on tour but uh when he came out he dressed super flashy like he was wearing all orange with a with a flat brimmed hat like a skater boy kind of thing and uh he he drew the crowds and he managed to become one of the more wealthy players on tour even though he doesn’t have the actual career earnings on field he’s gotten all kinds of sponsors and heck whatever however else you can make money as a celebrity um so Ricky’s still playing last year he had some amazing uh runs right now he’s in a little bit of a slump again but um but definitely Ricky now guys who are actually playing well right now um sah the gala comes to mind uh a couple wins on tour very young guy very likable guy um definitely draws some some interest well I’ll I’ll stop there yeah no good I mean yeah you know what you’re talking about and uh I think you do you sound like you do so it’s it’s great you don’t need to list them all but the few that you do list that’s that’s certainly helpful you’re adding a lot of value here to the show and to the audience so I’m thankful for that col Murray says totally a top 10 world player says the shark has 91 International wins that’s a big number 911 wins what Mike can you just you know you kind of shook your head some people were saying no Colin Murray says yes can you sort of reconcile these two thoughts but and then address 91 International wins that seems pretty important to me but why or why not do you think he’s in that top 10 so the sport of golf as I mentioned is going through this bit of of a division and and and what that really is is at the the top end of the sport that is the NFL of golf the the NBA of golf now there’s a bunch of other tours all around the world there’s the European tour which is um they were they’re called the PGA as well and and they’ve kind of joined um the rpga and our PGA has kind of joined with Liv now um the framework agreement hasn’t totally kind of come to fruition but it’s supposed to all kind of come together but there’s tours in Asia um in each individual country in heck Africa like all over the world there’s tours and Greg Norman was a traveling golfer and so I would like to look at what the breakdown of that really is um I wouldn’t be surprised if he had maybe a couple dozen Fugi tour wins but you know if he had a bunch of wins in Australia where he’s from do those really count I mean they count towards what he just said but I mean if he’s the best golfer in Australia you’d expect him to win all those events right well it’s interesting that you said you’d want to see those wins because Merchant aou says golf Legacy is measured by the quality of your wins not just having them you know we talk about Tom Brady Seven Super Bowls but a couple of them was he really instrumental in winning them I’m not to take I’m not trying to take anything away from him but it almost feels like in like in in major Pro Sports winning is more important than what you did to win what you know how big of a win you how big a part of the win you were in your position but that’s interesting stuff Jacob do says golf shirt memorability cards are always very nice yeah it’s like you get a lot of patterns they can definitely be nice James says Greg created the coolest polo shirts for golfers Colin Murray says I will go up against anyone when it comes to golf history vintage collector says two majors does not make you top 10 all right good oh and Colin Murray says number one in the world for 331 weeks that’s a that’s a big deal is it not Mike of course of course it’s a big deal that’s a very very big deal uh who was he playing against uh David Duval was number one in the world for a while and nobody talks about him anymore uh so this is this is going back to that time frame where I was collecting poke cards so I I’m not going to even pretend like I can go up against you Colin when it comes to golf history I’m just talking about what I see in the community Greg Norman has a niche following and in some cases sort of a a cult following when it comes to the live Shenanigans but from what I’ve seen he’s not really near the top like top 10 players yeah well and fair enough I mean these are always subjects for good and fun debates and discussions so okay we’re going to we’re going to switch up again uh I want to I want to get through everything that we had on that we had planned and the the last sort of section of topics tonight everybody is what I just have called other topics on my notes and the first other topic is has just and this has really nothing to do with golf so let’s just talk about it Mike and it’s something I know is is near and dear to you but like the just to to frame it problematic hobby Behavior things like addiction now we’re not talking about we’re not talking about your your standard addictions to alcohol and tobacco and gambling and drugs and all that we’re talking about addiction to sports cards to buying sports cards escapism and impulsivity I’m GNA just set the table with that and turn it over to you to share your thoughts on these things and why are they top of mind for you well I watched a YouTube video uh back in 201 20 when I was getting back into the Hobby in a more serious way and it was about a guy who collected basketball cards and he loved them so much that he spent a ton of money on them then he spent so much money that he couldn’t really sustain it and he became a breaker so that he could continue opening the packs but do it for others he ended up getting himself into some financial hardship uh because his spots weren’t filling he’d be buying spots giving them out discounted rates purchasing way too much product and to me this is kind of like the kind kind of uh generic storyline of someone who got addicted to cards or just became had problematic Behavior as you phrased it um when I think about it though it’s something more subtle and so I’ll ask you a question Jeremy how many times a day do you check your watch list on eBay dude I mean I I lo I lose track by lunchtime exactly is it a problem it depends on what you’re doing you know if you should be spending that time doing your work or spending time with your family or eating dinner or whatever it is you know I consider that a problematic Behavior if we were look to look back in history 100 years ago and we we we were reading in the history books that someone had this this device glued to their hip and they stared at it you know three times every minute you’d probably think what the heck were they doing so when I think of hobby problematic Behavior I think of things that are unique to our hobby that stimulate or push us into into problems because I I I’ve actually even talked to a counselor about this about addiction and and our Hobby and she actually said she didn’t think that it’s possible to be addicted to cards per se but there’s things that happen in our hobby there’s parts of the hobby that we can become addicted to screen time is an example of them um problematic buying you know you hear about shopaholics and people who spend load up their credit card and spend too much money and end up in car financial hardship and they lose their car and get divorced forced because of these sorts of things there’s probably and I and I haven’t done my full layout of how I really want to approach the subject on my own podcast but I think there’s categories of what I would call Mainstream addictions that are kind of transposed into our Hobby and it’s more than just saying I’m addicted to card this is cardboard crack it is normal addictive type behavior that gets really embellished because of our Hobby yeah I think it’s that you know to me the addiction to cards and you know we kind of use the term loosely I think but we’re not are we addicted to cards or are we addicted to that instant gratification of acquiring a new card the chase for completing a set the excitement that we get when we do open up a pack of cards and hit a big card or you buy a card online and it lands in your mailbox and you’ve got the anticipation all day of waiting for it those are I believe that’s some sort of chemistry going on in our brain that is causing us that excitement and maybe we’re ex we’re we become addicted to the feeling of walking to the mailbox or going to the mailbox or searching for cards on eBay and other platforms that to me is I think where more where the addiction is now if you are doing box breaks and group breaks constantly now now it’s sort of you know it becomes an addiction to the thrill of can I get something good A bit you know akin to gambling a little bit but I mean yeah I I think you said it really I never thought of it that way I don’t know that I’m addicted to cards themselves but I love adding cards to my collection so what am I what am I addicted to there I don’t know it’s to me it’s just such a part of my life now that that it’s like if I were to start to to to take my time away from the time I spent on cards if already spent on something else I would have a concern that I’m addicted oh maybe I’m addicted to something else now I got to get back to what I know and I’m comfortable comfortable with which is cards so it’s it’s interesting I think we all have different viewpoints on it and even as I’m thinking and talking on the spot here I’m sure I’m forgetting and not mentioning everything that I’d like to right now um and Robert Scott says it’s perfectly says it perfectly right here sports cards is a lifestyle that’s part of the sports cards live song so I can’t disagree with that myself let’s go through some comments on this though Mike because we’ve got uh several coming through uh fow five ball says is there a grading Addiction in the hobby I think yes and that’s that but that’s part of it right you send the cards out for grading and then you wait for the grades to get back and that’s the reveal of those grades is is a feeling that you can become addicted to is seeing how did how did my it’s like opening a pack of cards so I I definitely see that one foul five his name is Jeremy thanks for that one great great comment right there very quickly Shane O’Brien I see this I will check your IG message and we’ll get those cards shipped shipped out to you vintage says you can become addicted to almost anything cards included yeah I mean is it but again is it the cards I don’t know may maybe it is who am I to say it isn’t because everyone’s their own person Merchant a cool says every day new card addicts enter the hobby the frictionless transactions of the modern hobby makes these chases easier than ever yeah triple V says the chase or the Hunt is definitely a dopamine hit that’s the chemicals that I was referring to earlier JG says I would rather be addicted to cards instead of other things like drugs and gambling and alcohol all of those things I’m sure Tom Newman says this is a great topic honestly thanks I’m glad you you uh see value in a Tom Newman I do too because listen we can talk about carss but we are also human beings and people living lives outside of the Hobby and these these cards can us I’ll tell you guys a really quick story Mike just sort of bear with me here but this goes back probably 15 years local collector here in Calgary that I met through a friend of mine outside of the hobby they worked together they put us in touch we became hobby acquaintances I got a call from this guy two years into our relationship he says Jeremy I need to sell my whole collection can you come buy it from me right now and I’m like I’m on my way like what am I I need to I get to his house and he tells me that basically he has been buying cards behind his wife’s back he told me that he would he would go to the LCS he’ drop you know $1,500 and then he would tell his wife that he had to put new tires on the car because she wouldn’t know the difference apparently so he was doing those sorts of things it was impacting his family he came clean with his wife called me in to clean him out and I took everything like right down to empty tins of of retail product like bags of supplies used top loaders it’s like he’s like if you want the cards just you got to take every sign of collecting away from him and I did and you know I unfortunately I’ve lost track of this guy I don’t know how it worked out for him but that was a wakeup call for me even just to know how and this is a while this is before breaking was even a thing you guys again this is in the mid 2000s so it is an issue it’s an issue and all we’re all human beings so um stale prod says unfortunately the new the newcomers are mostly addicted to breaks hence Breakers continue to make mystery packs most people play just to gamble and hit they don’t even collect they hit to sell it is part of the whole ecosystem for sure about for sure right there at Mid-Atlantic this is here this might help us think about this uh Mike because he says this is Mid-Atlantic Sports cards and collectibles says I think think there are two strands of addiction in the hobby one is the addiction of a collector hoarder the second is the addiction of The Gambler yeah makes sense to me makes sense for me right there Merchant says they call them hits for a reason that Euphoria is universal to addiction isn’t that a bit of a he says they call them hits for a reason I never thought of that before right now that that’s like you think about you know unfortunately I’m not picking on anybody but you know when I have you know memories of Watch watching movies where the the drug addicts in the movies are saying I need I need a hit I need a hit and that boy oh boy there we go uh Jeremy foul fball says to me Jeremy you’re addicted to cards the first step is admitting it all right I admit it I’ll admit it I’m addicted to cards for sure he goes on to say everyone’s addicted to something LCS addict uh okay lots of lots of stuff here triple V is a pre-war addict a proud junkie of pre-war cards for sure yeah okay so James wi says he admitted I’ll admit it why not I mean hey it’s it’s a health to for me it’s a healthy addiction at least I think it is the the hobby certainly has enhanced my life and brought me a ton of joy and happiness and and and and another word I mentioned there Mike was escapism what do you because you brought that word to my attention what does that mean to you what how does that play into the hobby I’m glad you brought it up because that was the other aspect of problematic Behavior I wanted to talk about which is uncovering why are you collecting why do you want to buy that particular card or just being the Hobby in general and I think escapism can be a good thing in some ways if you have a lot of stress in life if you are okay otherwise but you know you’re job that’s okay you know you’re busy family you know you’ve crying babies in the house whatever and you just want to get away from it for reasonable amount of time and the hobby is a way for you to decompress and and and in the early days of folling cardboard I called it my card Sanctuary it was a place where I could unwind I could you know fondle my cards I could sift through honestly sometimes I didn’t have an objective but I just wanted to kind of Escape as long as you don’t do that at the expense of your family as long as you are not neglecting work as long as you are still taking care of your health there’s been weeks where I’ve had to burn the Midnight Oil to get an episode out on time because I don’t want to miss a week I published on late on Thursday nights so I say every new episode every Friday and on those weeks I wasn’t really looking after my sleep my health and I think that’s problematic Behavior I don’t think that being in a hamster wheel where you’re chasing your own tail and you’re not getting a productive uh meaningful experience is not it’s it’s just not good um if you’re in the hobby because you hate your life if you’re in the hobby to run away from your internal feelings you better look in the mirror you better talk to a professional because cards can be a great coping mechanism I talked about it in my early childhood you know my I I was living with a single mother she was working hard so she wasn’t always around and I was into cards because of loneliness I spend a lot of time alone with my cards and maybe that’s why I don’t go to card shows and stuff now I just enjoy spending time with my cards but at the end of the day I need to deal with that loneliness I can’t just be a card addict my whole life and have that be you know I I need more fulfillment than just letting this get past that I need to learn strategies to actually become happier without just getting the hits of cardboard yeah I mean there I I find cards to be a great distraction from the stresses of life but but they don’t take me away from from addressing and dealing with the stresses of life so and that’s just balance and that’s just you know maybe chalk it up to you know being an adult having responsibilities and being able to honor those responsibilities and you know am I guilty of looking at my phone or you know doing an eBay search or checking out uh you know listening to a podcast or in with one earbud in when I could be giving more attention to other areas of my life yeah of course of course but at the end of the day you know I’m I’m I’m going to give myself a break and say you know I’m doing a good job in other areas of my life but you do have to keep an eye on these things and not get carried away and not you know it’s like we talked about the addiction piece but there’s also the phone piece like our the hobby is on the phone now to such a great degree that you know you’re you’re we have so many people in today’s society are addicted to the phone to scrolling how much time do we spend scrolling Instagram post Instagram stories Facebook Twitter or X I mean so yeah it it’s important stuff and we go to you got to just try and maintain balance and if you don’t maybe you need to find some some some some help some counseling on it but okay let’s do a couple comments couple comments uh Brendan Ryan says cards are the gateway to larger rabbit holds larger rabbit holes always have been I don’t know that I understand the nature of this comment Brendan because what are the larger rabbit holes I’m trying to think for myself that I can’t think of any other larger rabbit holes that cards have have been the Gateway for me I kind of stop at cards but maybe there’s something that I’m not thinking of so if you want to expand on that Brendon I’m curious what you’re thinking Mark santui says I find cards to be great entertainment being we lost CDs and vinyl records but you can still listen to music Mark I added like 20 songs to my one of my main playlists today mookie chillson says the happiness comes from the comaraderie and friendships the hobby provides cards at their best are a gateway to healthy Rel relationships I love this comment mookie like right right Mike like this this is this explains what I one of the things I love about the hobby is that just how many great relationships I have been able to to get through the hobby like yeah awesome Robert Scott also an admitted one earbud podcast listener yeah Robert you know what that’s like you need to keep a keep your ear on some other things at times as well Jacob do says I always thought about cards in the hobby like this when it’s not fun anymore then I know it’s time to get out of it I want to say one thing to that though Mike because I find you know over with 40 plus years in the hobby I have gone through phases where I just lose a bit of interest you know not late this hasn’t happened to me now you know for 10 years but it was happening before where I would find times Mike where I would not be you know as in entr trenched as I am at the at the peak and instead of getting out of it I just I would just step back you know not step out I wouldn’t step out I would step back and keep watching but be less active and that to me is a way was the way that I coped with that type of situation have you Mike recently and even since uh you kind of got back in just before the pandemic have you had any periods where you felt like you weren’t as in into it and you need to step back but you you came back again after that or have you just been Full Throttle I’ve been Full Throttle there’s there hasn’t been a time where I don’t have the drive the interest in being in the hobby um one kind of example or parallel that I can think of is the guy who you know you can think of a guy who goes to the bar to avoid his family as being an alcoholic and he does it because he’s addicted to alcohol fine but there’s an underlying issue there now what about the who goes to the pool hall he might not be consuming any substances but he’s doing it because he’s fun he loves playing pool it’s it’s his hobby well if he goes too far into that at the expense of spending time with his kids or whatever then in my eyes it’s problematic behavior and so that’s kind of it’s why it’s in in this kind of category it’s it’s not a drug and in some ways yeah the gambling aspect of the hobby can be a drug Etc but be CAU be careful be conscious of how you spend your time maybe if if you’re spending if I spend this much time in the hobby maybe I can’t go golfing as much yeah yeah okay let’s go on a couple more topics here we literally have like I want to be I’d like to be done this in about seven minutes so we can keep under two hours here Mike um ethics of buying and selling cards after a tragedy or a death you’d mentioned Keegan Murray Willie Mays is the one that’s really swept the headlines lately share your thoughts on on do you think there is an ethical first of all I think there is an ethical dilemma but do think that there is an ethical issue here or reasons ethical reasons why people should not sell cards after a tragedy or a death Kobe Bryant comes to mind of course as well in in recent years what are your thoughts Absolutely I’ll try to keep this concise and by the way I gave you that name Keegan marray but uh I had a brain fart it’s actually Grayson Murray so problem for those and that was my mistake so for those of you who aren’t familiar Grayson Murray was a golfer who had passed away um about a month AG go and uh he he had took his own life um and when that sort of thing happens it’s tragic it it it pulls on your heartstrings and it’s more than just the situation it’s that he was a young man he was 30 years old he was in his prime he is someone who had fought through adversity he had uh struggled on the PGA tour he won an event a PGA event in his rookie season which was in 2016 or 2017 something like that and he had this massive dry spell where he would lose his PGA card and come back and he was fighting with alcoholism and and eight or nine months ago he he went clean he he dropped the alcohol he got engaged shortly after this January he won another PGA event he was at the top of the world and still he was he was wrestling with these demons so when you really you think about this situation you think about what he was going through it’s just devastating to his fans to the the sport and when something like that happens if you own his cards and you want to sell them fine you have every you have every right to do so I think that I wouldn’t personally want to impose restrictions on my group like I hear others in some in some rooms of of sort of a no selling grace period whatever I think that’s a respectful thing to do but I I believe that I believe in the free market I don’t want to impose rules but what I what really bothers me about that kind of a situation and I’m sure it happened with Kobe as well another very diff completely different circumstances but very tragic situation is when people intentionally buy up all of that player’s cards as best they can and immediately relist them for 10 20x now I don’t know if that exactly was able to happen with Kobe because Kobe was already a great of the sport whereas Grayson was uh you know a vet let’s say you know just just an everyday average average PGA player um his autographs his rookie autographs they were selling for a few dollars like it was you know and and for the and and and if some big milestone in a player’s life were to occur a death is one of those an example of a milestone in a person’s life obviously that is a marker where things spike in the market fair enough but what I hated to see was on comc is is a great example where you can look at what prices were the day before and the day after when somebody bought up all of the cards that they could for $2 to $3 and listed them for $60 it it’s just it’s like you’re obviously trying to take advantage of the situation and there aren’t people paying $60 for that card anyways like at auction they were selling for 20 maybe $30 so I don’t know I’d be curious to hear what you think about that Jeremy I know we can talk about Willie Mays uh uh Bill Russell’s another good example where people some somebody dying from old age it’s tragic for the legacy of the sport for their fans it’s sad but unless they got hit by a car or something you know what I mean like if it’s natural causes it’s it’s a natural you know part of life as opposed to a tragedy so Jeremy what do you think that yeah I like that drawing that line between you know dying of natural causes at old age versus a tragedy like you know Kobe’s helicopter accident or uh your your golfers uh taking his own life I mean those are you know much too early right and going and just trying to buying cars for two bucks and flipping them for 60 because somebody died I think you know that’s uh it’s almost predatory behavior now do I think it’s wrong I don’t know I mean ethically I I would personally I would not be comfortable doing that I I would not do that but like you said I mean who the the hobby the the L the platforms allow for it no there’s no rule that you can’t do it it’s we live in a capitalistic Society so you know I just chalk it up to you know if that’s how you want to make money that’s how you want to make money I mean uh I’m not going to do it I’m not going to I’m not going to buy the cards from you that’s for sure you know old age you said it’s tragic to the Legacy I I don’t know that I and I don’t know that you meant how you meant that but to me when a person dies of old age I I generally and this is you know even my own family thinks I might be a little cold when it comes to but I don’t look at it as tragic every old people die and I don’t mean that to be insensitive but it does happen and not to not to I’m not discounting the love we have for athletes or the love you have for your grandparents or your parents but it happened so is it tragic it’s sad it’s sad but let’s celebrate the Legacy let’s not let’s not say that the legacy is now it’s a tragic Legacy let’s celebrate the life of your grandparent your old parent or these or the wiie mays the Orlando sepas who just passed away yesterday I choose to look at it like that it’s the end of a chapter and is it tragic I don’t personally I don’t think Willie May’s death was tragic I don’t think Orlando sepa’s death was tragic Russell Kobe Bryant’s death tragic uh Grayson M I forget the golfers uh Grayson keeg Grayson Murray tragic so I don’t know when it comes to Willie May these older gentlemen passing away and do people start to you know transact on their cards more they do I don’t have as much of an issue with that personally and I like listen I’ve got a Willie Mays rookie card he passed away selling it did not even it it didn’t even not even cross my mind like there’s I know I’m not selling his card I I mean then I got to Reby it and no I’m not I’m not going to sell it just to make a few bucks and maybe that’s me being naive or or or dumb and maybe I could have made some money but I love the card and anyway those those are my thoughts um so I’ll I’ll leave that to that we have a lot of comments coming in right now I’ll go to I’ll go a couple of them uh James says people loaded up on maze cards because he was getting up there in age so they’re loading up to sell them when he passes away I mean that’s a strategy unfortunately it’s a strategy it it is a strategy professor says I was watching Bill Russell cards on a platform and he passed away and the cards were immediately relisted for double the price and that happened at the national when he died during the national I believe was that last year or the year before uh so that that happened everywhere and Professor caught it on a platform for sure uh Robert Scott says we can’t control other people’s morals and values just move on yeah like that’s that’s the real that’s a pragmatic approach it’s one that I personally kind of adhere to as well Colin Murray says career- ending injuries hurt a card’s value and we try to dump the cards as quick as possible yeah and that to me a career-ending injury is a lot different than an a tra a tragic death during a career at too young of an age but career- ending injuries yeah get out as quick as you as quick as you can for sure uh rage says couldn’t agree more Jeremy it still hurts even with old age but it’s a totally different ball game when it’s a young person with the whole life ahead of him yeah exactly exactly okay the fin we’re gonna go into overtime here the final topic Mike that I because I put it in the description so I feel we got to get to it was The Collector investor debate it’s talked about a lot I want to get your perspective and I’m going to open this one up quickly with do you see cards as Investments or some some cards not all how do you look at cards and investing you know um when I this was also a result of funneling cardboard is when I started the podcast I had just got out of that sort of relationship or partnership uh with an investor type of person and so I went totally on the opposite end of the spectrum almost like politics when somebody rubs you the wrong way and you you become more and more in your laurels and during my conversations I’ve intentionally brought on investors onto the podcast because we have opposing views and we have very civil conversations to hash out each other’s perspectives they have totally convinced me that at the end of the day if I’m spending you know this Colin warawa uh Exquisite uh retro rookie autograph card if I’m spending hundreds of dollars for this card potentially thousands depending on uh the point in time um do I view it as an investment no I mean I don’t TR view or treat it as an investment but at the end of the day if I’m spending that amount of money and I’m not a multi-millionaire then yeah I have to treat it as an investment I I can’t just throw it in a shoe box like people did with sports cards when collecting was The Craze um many decades ago so I’ve I’ve gotten back more into the middle it’s the Topic’s only here um as I requested basically to reference I’ve done an entire ser series on the funling cardboard podcast about collector versus investor and if you guys want to see someone’s perspective meaning me grow and evolve from someone who kind of hated the investment side of the thing to becoming to saying you know what at the end of the day anyone can participate in this hobby however they see fit however you get fulfillment out of the hobby you do you and we don’t all have to do it the same way um and and maybe that’s you know a more pragmatic approach just like you mentioned somebody’s comments you know did I get worked up a little bit when I saw people uh taking a $2 card one day Suddenly It’s Worth $20 and they’re trying to sell it for $60 to take advantage of a situation you know sure I might get a Nicky feeling but at the end of the day they can do what they want I think that’s yeah that’s uh exactly how I look at it too the way the way I say it very similar to you is it’s up to the individual if the cards they are purchasing are for investment or you know just for pure Leisure and enjoyment and uh so that that’s how I see it as well Mike I think youve you’ve grown into the same sort of mindset that I have there so I think that’s that not only is it the is it you know I think just a legitimate approach when you think of it that way it’s also just it’s the reality like no one can say and I see people saying it all the time cards these are not Investments well not to you because you haven’t figured out how to make them an investment not not a not a not a a dig at you but just like you haven’t been maybe you haven’t been able to make money with sports cards other people have some people made a lot of money on sports cards so they they can be Investments if you have some Savvy and you kind of have some experience and know what you’re doing uh but really it’s up to the individual they are not I would say not every sports card is investment worthy there very few likely are you know on a rate on a you know per card ratio basis so do as you will everybody um we’ll I’ve talked about that you know had nauseum on this channel for four plus years now so uh don’t need to get into it much more in depth than that but I wanted to hear your what your thoughts were because you did tell me it was something that was you know interesting to you so I’m glad we got to talk about that and we are going to wrap this one up now we are five minutes into overtime I don’t often get to use the overtime Banner anymore but we have it up right now so I want to thank James wi says great discussions thank you James Joe perau says fantastic show guys way to go thank you Joe appreciate that got to thank the chat tonight Mike I mean I want to thank you Mike for bringing new people over to sports cards live for promoting this this show tonight in your Facebook group and uh letting people know about it and anyone who has joined because Mike was here tonight I welcome you to the sports cards live YouTube channel and content I’d be grateful if you would come back again subscribe to the channel you know subscribe to the podcast all those sorts of things that us content creators uh en you know we appreciate they help to grow what we are doing so thank you so much to to you Mike everyone that you brought here as well guys get in your final comments I see they are oh they are coming in already very F Merchant AOL says OT win for Mike yeah he made it into overtime only 10 likes apparently guys Colin Murray says hit that like button if you don’t mind I greatly appreciate it thank you to Merchant a cool Jeff McMahon Hillcrest 03 welcome and thank you so much Yankees fan enjoyed the convo that’s awesome Fraser mul Holland good to see you thank you for being here I’m glad you and Colin had a good chance to catch up in the chat that’s awesome rage thank you for being here as well I want to remind everybody that this sports cards live and the Vintage Spotlight are available wherever you listen to your podcasts I ask you to please leave a review a rating great greatly appreciated as we try to grow the podcast component of the show all Elite says whole new outlook to collect golf cards isn’t that’s great news Mike for you in the community Fraser says great show guys thanks for spending some time on golf you know at first I was a little as I said at the top of the show at first when I talked to Mike I was hesitant to do a golf show and then I realized no that that would be so so just not the right move and I knew there would I knew there there would be value in this so I’m so glad that that it’s that you know Mike that I came around and we did it and that uh that the audience is really enjoying it I’m very grateful for that thank you Jeremy for being here as always Robert Scott good to see you Colin Murray is hcor exchange hockey card exchange on Instagram check out hockey card exchange everybody thank you Jeremy fellow five ball appreciate it all right final comments over to you Mike and then we are done for the night we’re done we’re going to skip a full-on show Intel because I I could go on and on about my cards over you show Bunch throughout but I do have some tiger cards here cosmics this is the one I said that was uh that’s the pop one PSA 10 tiger Diamond Relic so I wanted to show that off just because I alluded to it earlier and then we got a star rubies Tiger Woods here as well out of 50 of course all in the Retro stylings of uh of you know the 90s so um Jeremy thank you so much for having me this was an honor I am a listener of the show and I’m glad that some of the other golf cart collectors are being exposed to it um of course anybody who’s you know already a fan of Jeremy and his show check out following cardboard podcast on Spotify uh Apple podcast all those sorts of Audio Only places and then Instagram funing cardboard and atthe Golf Card Collector um and then Facebook we’ve alluded to it but I’m ad in for it’s called golf cards and memorabilia so come join uh there’s lots of action taking place in the Facebook group uh just so that I’m not completely biased there’s also a group called Golf and Tennis cards and there’s a really great group called uh golf memorabilia collector uh I’m not involved in those although I’m member and I like to participate as a community members so uh come join come collect golf cards yeah so you know so many resources for Golf card current enthusiasts and anyone who just wants to discover it and get into it I think we might have brought a few people over there I hope we did that’s great stuff guys thank you Mike for joining yet again thank you so much Mike thank you to the chat as always I’ll be back online tomorrow night and Monday night for some live auction coverage for pwcc and then for MC Sports Cards on Monday tons of action tons of discussion education lots of great stuff so thank you everybody for joining us tonight and with that this episode of sports cards live for June the 29th 2024 is now over
5 Comments
Doubt
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I got into Golf cards in 2001. I miss Beckett Golf Collector.
#upperdeck
Great interview