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

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

In this episode of Collector Nation, Ryan Alford is joined by grading expert Mike Baker to break down the fundamentals of card grading. Mike walks through real-world examples to explain how centering, corners, surface, and manufacturing flaws impact a card’s final grade—and why most collectors overestimate their cards. The conversation also covers counterfeits, grading trends, and how to approach submissions more strategically. Whether you’re new to the hobby or looking to level up your grading knowledge, this episode offers a practical guide to evaluating cards like a pro. Topics Covered Basics of card grading Key factors: centering, corners, surface Why collectors overestimate grades Counterfeit vs. altered cards Grading modern vs. vintage cards Submission strategy and mistakes Connect with Mike Baker https://www.mbadiamond.com/ https://www.instagram.com/mikebakerauthenticated Connect with Ryan Alford Ryanisright.com https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford

Hey, you grade what you see, so clean those cards up before you. The counterfeiting is that's not the problem. The problem is, you know, alterations relative to trimming and shaping corners and things like that. That's more nuanced. That's where the experience and judgment call kind of comes into play. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, you take you inside a hobby. Here's your host, Ryan,

all for me. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network. I'm back with one of my good buddies. You know how much I, you guys know how good I talk about Mike and Mike Bakers. So nice to join us here again as our official, the official professional world's greatest, greater of Collector Nation, Mike. I just gave you a new title. I love it. Thanks for having me, as always. Baker, authenticated, MBA grading, up-and-coming grading company, though he is the world-renowned grader and XPSA badass. So, hey, I'm just coming up with all of them now, Mike. But, hey, are you, I know I'm the marketing guy and I add all these titles to you.

But are you the world's greatest grader? That's a matter of opinion. I'm just going to come on that. There's a lot of opinions out there. I mean, does anyone have more experience grading than you? As a professional grader, probably not, no. So, I mean, I think, like, we've talked in the past or whatever, like the superpower is that I go to trade shows.

I'm at the booth. I talk. You know, I'm articulating where I'm coming from relative to why the car got what it received grade-wise. So if there's anything that kind of makes it, like, more compelling is the fact that I'm just more accessible. Yes. Well, that's for sure.

I mean, honestly, are there any other, they haven't hit my radar at the are. Are there any other graders that are sort of personal brands? No. They all just kind of want to hide behind the, I mean, I get it. It's not, it's a tough spot. I mean, you own the company, so you're out in front. Plus, you do the, you know, I know you have a team now helping, but it is kind of a

fine balance. So I guess there is that, you know. That is, that's the word, too. it's the fine balance. You know, the optics on having a grader be accessible and then, you know, talking to submitters and all that, it's, there's definitely a fine line. I can just tell you that the card's the card. We grade what we see. And if people have questions as to why the card received the grade that it received, that's where I'll come in and tighten it up. So that's, that's a superpower. I just love that, again, accessibility is a good word. You know, what you're

doing with, hey, you know, come online. I'll do a digital analysis, give you an idea. where you'd be for a very reasonable fee. So you don't have to play the guessing game. You know, you answer DMs and texts. And, you know, I know not just for me, of course for me, but, but I know you do it for everyone. You know, like to pretend I'm special. But I am special because Mike was so gracious and so authentic in coming to the grand

opening collector station. I want to give him a props and thank you. He's here live on the air for that. I really meant a lot, Mike. I mean, having you here. And, you know, just spending, I know that time, money, energy, effort, all that. And I love you for that, brother. Back at you, man.

Strategic partnerships are, that's what's all about. Yeah, man. And look, it's, I'll say this. So I've, you know, own the shop, you know, feels like two years, but I think officially two months open, soft opening, two months and a month and a half. I don't know, weeks are running together. the official grant open company weeks ago. The amount of people, Mike, that walk in,

and the third thing they say is, you know, how much is this or that or, you know, hey, like, cool spot or, you know, small talk. The third thing is, do you offer grading services or what do you think? I mean, grading is like the third, like third thing out of their mouth with every other person that walks in. It is just the topic in the hobby now. Well, the awareness gap is definitely narrow.

People are more educated about, you know, why grading is so important in making sure that the card's, you know, real. It's, you know, it hasn't been played with. It's special in terms of the grade that it receives. It becomes even more special for receives an NBA diamond. There's, you know, all that kind of, I was in a, I was in an elevator and a little kid, I think I talked to the last show. You know, like a little seven-year-old kid was talking about grading right off the get, which grading is. service should I use? And it's like, wow, that's, you know, it's, it's great. Everyone's got a lot more leap from the days gone past where a lot of the education about grading was doing it in a person.

You know, there was no internet and there was no way to like make it kind of international. And now it's like, you know, we're talking to guys as all the grading services, I'm sure they are talking with people from all over, all across the world. So that's, that's, it's awesome. Yeah, man. And it sort of makes sense. I don't know. part of me is like when I came back in the hobby I was like wow greating's gotten more important and I was like well you know but then I started to think about and I'm like you know what also has gotten more you've got AI and really good printers at home that can fake the shit out of stuff so yeah like the games are big the game yeah and you got pieces of cardboard with tens of thousands

if not millions of dollars yeah heck even when it's $500 depending on your scale you got someone to mess around with it. Yeah. In fact, it's the lower value stuff you really kind of watch out for because everyone's targeting the bigger ones. But the guys that are, you know, playing around with the $50 to $100 cards, you know, those, you just, you can't take it for granted. You got to look at the card and the value doesn't play into the grading aspects, you know. I literally had a guy yesterday, Mike, another shop that's in North Carolina, a guy, you know, North Carolina guy, I know friends with, good guy. And he just sent me a text. He said, hey, man, lookout there's a guy peddling fake downtowns of Jackson Dart and somebody else. He said,

just FI. And I mean, have you ever been sent a fake card, Mike? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, lots of fake cards. In fact, when I first started at PSA, that was kind of like my lane was, you know, trying to be ahead of the curve relative to counterfeits and identification of new ones coming out of the market. it. And the great thing about the internet now, you have guys that have platforms that specialize in this stuff too. So when we're talking about who's the best grader or whatever, there are guys that specialize in certain lanes that are really, really good. And, you know, one of the cool things about our community, hobby, whatever, is that they share. You know, no one wants to see somebody get burned in a hobby where you're spending your discretionary income on stuff you

have passion for and then get burned like a downtown, you know, Jackson Darkheart. That would suck, you know. So it's up to. us and the community at large to look out for each other and, you know, share it when you have it. Have you seen some pretty good ones? Oh, yeah. No, there's really good ones. The vintage cards in terms of, you know, counterfeits are much easier to spot because it's the card stock that's impossible to replicate.

But they get, they put brown sugar and throw them in an oven and try to tone them and kind of throw them in a basement and kind of get that, you know, that vintage smell and look and all that. The downtowns are much more. Yeah, exactly. You're kind of 20 minutes of the oven, you'd be surprised what they look like, you know. But the modern cards are ones you got to watch out for because the technology and there is no paper. It's all plastic, you know, so different, different resins and plastics that are making the cards. And that's what makes it more challenging.

How often now with, you know, Mike Baker authenticate NBA Diamond is getting busier, are you seeing face? Not many. You know, I mean, it's like kind of, you know, PSA would definitely be seeing the bigger because there's the market leader. Yeah, the volume. I mean, they did, I looked at the gem rate numbers that were released for March and they did over two million cards in a month. That's just unbelievable. Yeah. So it's a one a month maybe, what every couple months for you?

Yeah, maybe like one a month that we'll see like kind of like what the heck kind of stuff, you know. Yeah. But it's, it's, the counterfeiting is that's not the problem. The problem is, you know, alterations relative to trimming and shaping corners and things like that. That's more nuanced because you'll get a card that measures, but it doesn't have factory distractions on the side when you're looking at it. And you can kind of tell like a nail file or something's kind of honed in the corner to make it look a little, little tighter or better.

So that's, that's where the experience and judgment call kind of comes into play. So, yeah. How do you feel about people that? like clean up their cars before sitting for grading. Is that perfectly okay? I get that, no, putting paint on it or something.

I'm not saying that. I'm not talking about like what a used car does to the cars on the lot. Well, it used to be like really frowned on. And now you see it when you go to shows, you'll see boost that are set up specifically to handle it. And they've got, they're branded with grading services in terms of,

you know, the prep for going to wiping fingerprints and whatever. I mean, generally the rule for us is that we agree what we see. you know and if it smells like bleach then i'm not going to go you know so if someone's putting some additive on it that could be identified then that that's adding something that shouldn't be on the card but if it's something that you can't identify and you're like throwing darts trying to figure out what's been done you're going to do you won't have a line so you just have to grade what you see take a deep breath you know and do your best basically so and stick to the standard would you advise

people i mean hey you grade what you see so clean those cards up before you know you're you obviously don't add chemicals and do things, but if there's a fingerprint on the card, I mean, that's going to impact the grade. If it can be wiped without damaging the card, you know, and you're not going to be able to see it as a grader. You know, I mean, if it's done right and, you know, a fingerprint pops off a Chrome card, it's like, what are you going to do? So it's not, that's not a big deal.

You have to be careful doing that, though, too, because if you don't have a, you know, a microfiber towel or some type of whatever you're using, it has any type of contaminants on it, you can scratch the cart too. They're very temperamental. So you want to be careful. So having to go to someone that knows what they're doing probably isn't a bad idea if you're going to go that route. My wife would say that they're a lot like me, my temperamental. Yeah, you notice I put that on me and not on her.

You know, like I've been married long enough to know which way to direct that. Smart move. Yeah, look at this cup I got. Oh, my God. Yes. The Tigers. I did not know this. Mike came down.

I went to Clemson, lifelong Clemson fan. We're 20 minutes. The store is 20 minutes from the university. And Mike goes, I love it. You know, I think it's all got found out with Bella,

like right before he got here or something. Mike's a Clemson fan. I was like, I knew I loved him. Now I really love him. That's hilarious. Yeah, the fact, you're in California now, right?

Yeah. I live in Oregon now. I'm in Oregon. Okay. Oregon. You're growing up in Southern California, I think I had to be like the only Clemson fan, you know. Yeah. That is,

there's something about that that is quite amazing. Yeah. The chances of that are slim, but I'm glad he's supporting our Clemson Tigers today with his drink of choice. I'm supporting our Atlanta Braves down the road. I'm hoping they started a hot. Nice lid. Cooling off a little.

We've got to get him started back. They play this afternoon against the Angels. I believe. Yes, they're playing Trout. I got Trout today. I was looking at the odds on that. On Mike Trout, one of our sponsors, wonderful sponsors is looking at, I got some bonus credits. I got to play or they get used up. I was like, looking at the get, as we talked, we're both kind of ex-gamblers. Mine, I'm using credits. I didn't pay for Mike. So again, I'm not going back off or on the wagon. It's credits I'm using for a sponsor. You can appreciate it. judgment. No judgment. No judgment at all.

I thought everybody would get a kick out of this, Mike. You know, what better... I think there's a lot of curiosity. How do cars get graded? I mean, you know, the general rules are out there, but I think it is sort of like this black box that everybody's like, well, for one, everybody thinks they have a 10. You know? And everyone that walks in my shop thinks that they have a 10, too.

We have a few reasonable people, but mostly unreasonable. And I just thought, hey, Mike can do, maybe we'll do this in segments. 101 this time. We'll do 201, 301, 301. And for that, we do have our microscope camera here. Bella Schaefer, our excellent producer, got the microscope hooked up. Listen, we're getting fancy now, Mike. We have a game worn patch from one of the greatest players to ever live and currently playing,

according to me it's a not for sale in the Ryan offered personal collection i just picked this up i'm trying to get the number on there it's out of does that say 99 that's i believe yep i'm reading that correct yep six out of 99 six out of 99 so we have a patch card which are hard to get pins on as it is of stick cards are terrible but mike walk us through i'll I'll shift the card word you want it. You tell me kind of the rules, the 101 rules of grading and what you do. Yeah.

Okay. So first thing we do, we would take a quick measurement. So right now we kind of zoomed in on the corner, but the first thing I would do is measure the card, left to right, top to bottom, and then kind of present it to see how the centering looks for the card,

in terms of its borders, top to bottom, left to right. And then we'd be doing the evaluation with the seven power, loop is what I use. Looking at the corners under magnification, kind of what we're doing right now. And these cards are, the RPAs are a pain because of the manufacturing process that you just talked about.

To get a 10 is like really difficult. Like kind of the average grade that we see is like an 8 and a 9 would be kind of like the 10. So a 10 is definitely challenging to get one just because they're handled by, there's a whole different manufacturing process. You're adding the patch. Sometimes you're adding an autograph and it's just getting handled way more than a normal card that's being produced. So people coming in with those types of cards thinking they have a 10, they're definitely just need to be educated about why the cards sit the way they sit.

Set up for disappointment. That's right. That's right. So looking at the corners, they look actually fairly square. I think what you would need to do at this point, like digitally they look square. But even that corner looks like maybe has like a little light little fuzz. the upper right. So any top layer on the card stock front or back would would count and be considered a flaw. How much of a flaw is based on how much of the stock is missing.

And, you know, does it, is the corner truly square? Is it fuzzy? You know, things like that that kind of play into what's allowable for a 10, a 9, 5, 8, 8, that type of thing. And so like, so what far is what you're seeing here already, just qualifying a 10, most likely? Just digitally right now, it looks like, yeah, it looks like under-manification, if you were looking at it in person and you have the card and you look closer under magnification with a loop or magnifying lens, it looks like that corner has a little rub, a light touch, so to speak. So if you add that touch up with the balance of the corners, and I'm sure we'll probably see some similar characteristics to kind of tie in to that, because generally how they come, the profile of those cards. you're probably looking at like an 8-85 just off that one corner right there. So, because I bet you like on the back, let's turn it over real quick too. Okay.

I'm on the back. Bear with this is our first segment using digital cam. The collector nation digital cam here. So it only gets better over time. Bully branded. Yeah. Hey, Mike. That's how we do things.

There we go. The MBA, collector nation, digital cam. Yeah, there we go. I love it. Let's see here. That looks a little bit better. Yeah. Zooming in.

And this is the back, correct? This is the back. Yep. Let's take a look at the other corner. Okay. I'm going to go bottom. That one looks pretty sharp. That one does, that does look pretty sharp.

That one looks like there's a little. slight little touch again possibly. Yeah. And then final back corner. Top. Pretty decent. Yeah, pretty decent. Yeah.

I think at this point it would be you looking at it physically, you know, with your, with your eyes or magnification and kind of tying in what you're seeing digitally and see if it comports to what you're seeing. Yeah. And then how to stuff, maybe walk through. audience through how much does corners take off versus centering versus surface so with centering it's less subjective because there's parameters and there's centering devices that you can use to get to line up the the micrometer zero point on the edge of the card to the

border area that's that you're calling the defined area of the border so basically for that card it would be you know let's see here so like the bottom of the nameplate would be so bottom of allan right there would be one one moniker and then the top of the card would be the other moniker so you would you would mic out the distance between the two that looks pretty good um 55 45 45 or better is you know allowable for a tent and then the left to right would be you know from the from the left of the blue from where it starts to the yep that looks pretty darn darn good too So I would say that centering-wise, that looks like it has the ability to fall into a tent. So that would be the first thing.

And that's not subjective. You and I will probably get the exact same measurement using the same device. And it would tell you what the centering is left to right and top to bottom. On these cards, too, for RPAs and patches, you want to look for where the patch is inserted. Sometimes you'll see surface wrinkles or like kind of where they were forced in and pressure. And it affects the card stock. So sometimes you'll look at the rim that's kind of the frame of the of the patch and you want to make sure that there's no you know, wrinkling or kind of like pressure points from the card from the from the patch being placed in there.

That's kind of that's actually a pretty big tip because people overlook that. They get caught up in, you know, it's a number of card. It's your favorite player. You know, the centering looks great. The corners look great. And then you forget about looking at the kind of technical detail of the of how the patch frame is as well. So. So I'm hearing.

from you, Mike, but I'm not going to put words in your mouth. But based on what we've seen here Yeah. Mike could look at the corners a little tighter. I mean, we're in that 9 to 10 territory on this card potentially, right? You're in the 9 to 10

territory relative to centering and the overall, I don't see any like obvious edge chipping from what I saw. So I think those qualities are pretty good. I don't know about surface. You have to look at the surface to make sure there's no like indentation sometimes fingernails from the people that are handling RPAs.

Sometimes we'll hit the back. So you want to make sure there's none of that. And then the last thing, really, to kind of tighten up this package would be just the verification of the front and back corner tips to ensure that there's no stock loss. There's no poofy corners and things like that. That I cannot verify digitally that you would have to do that in person. Or send it to you to. Or send it.

Yeah. Yep. That's right. the goal. So a lot of the, we have the NBA digital review where we get a ton of, a ton of cards on the daily. And really what it is,

people, I think lose side of the fact that really what the services for us to help vet what not to send. So if that card was off centered and it had obvious things that I could, you know, point out or do point out, that's something you don't want to send. But things that fall within kind of like this card where,

hey, digitally everything looks pretty darn good. And then it would just be the physical inspection that would tighten up what you're seeing digitally, basically. Is it true or untrue that if you slip a hundo in with your card, you get a higher grade? I don't think it makes it to the graders to ever see that. So you have to ask the processors or the shipping clerks. That's better for them. We don't start conspiracy theories here on. Oh, yeah.

I'm sure they're already out there. What's the funniest thing you hear now or in the past on the conspiracy theories that people say? What's the most common thing that people think that's just so far from the truth? I think people that have a good eye that always seem to have great cards are kind of looked at that they have an edge. It's not because they have a great eye or they've put in the work and they know what they're doing. it's because there's some reason why my card looks like that and they're getting the benefit and I'm not. And, you know, so basically it goes to the fact, you know, if you sore like an eagle, you attract hunters. And sometimes, you know, it just brings out that kind of, that kind of jealousy or hate or whatever we want to call it.

You know, it's kind of like don't hate the player, hate the game. And, you know, the game is that there's tons of, tons of information about what to look for, you know, just this little grading 101 with the collector station. digital cam, you know, is a good start for how to evaluate cards and make yourself better. You know, a lot of people do this for a living, too. And the people that don't do it for a living that have a nine to five and they're submitting cards because they pulled them from a pack and they believe there are tens. And, you know, the guy that's doing it for a living knows that when you pull a car from a pack, it could have light, frictional pack from being in the recesses of a pack.

And you identify things. And so those things don't make it into grading because grading is expensive as well. So you want to vet what you're going to be submitting, and you submit what you believe is the best and the best. And if you go through that process and you're pretty consistent with it and you grow from it, you're bound to have pretty decent luck you would think in terms of getting higher grades, just because you're putting in the work to give the graders the best stuff. So I think that's kind of the, that would probably be like the number one thing, conspiratorial-wise about people getting, you know, better grades and whatnot. They're just, you know, some guys just have better eyes than others. And what to look for and what the graders are looking for. Some things bug different grading services more than others.

So there's little, you know, all these little nuances that you have to, you know, take into account. Well, we did a, we did a modern card with one of the greatest modern players of all time. Why not do a vintage card a little bit here, Mike? If you'll love it, mind. This is one of my personal cards. I have not had it graded. I had just taken it on collection, but when you came by and it was sitting in my two review stack of things, but this is a Willie Mays. I think it's this, you probably know the year without me looking at it.

Is it 19? Let's zoom in here. My eyes are getting bad. 68, 66. 66. 66. Willie Mays. What am I looking for differently here, Mike?

Well, so this is another good little tidbit. Modern cards are graded just like vintage cards. So you're looking for the same centering parameters apply with the borders that are highlighted. You're looking at cornerware. Maybe a little bit more edge issues with vintage cards. They used rubber bands back in the day. So on the top edges and the side edges, you'll see rubber band marks or little edge. deals from you know they're stored differently back then too you know card savers they weren't around

back in the 60s you know so they they kept them in shoeboxes didn't have access to that cheap china plastic that's right so basically yeah well cheap china plastic wasn't around there neither um it's the truth so it was just things were just store differently they were handled differently now there's way more of an awareness that's why when you see cards that are you know eight nine and ten that are vintage cards It's like, that's the kid that had a toy that never opened it and played with it. You know, and that's why the cards are so expensive because there's just not a huge population of the stuff, you know, in high grade. And so the supply and demand, you know, drives the prices. And you throw grading into it relative to eight, nines and tens, and you throw a population report and a set registry.

All of a sudden, it's gamified. And, you know, it's like I got to have it and prices go up based on the supply. So. All right. Let me ask. Here's something that I hear, even I think I hear myself. saying it sometimes. Yep.

And I know it's probably not true, so you're going to debunk it. But damn it. I like to live in the fairy world sometimes. Mike, fairy. Yeah, it just makes, yeah, we all do in the hobby, convincing ourselves. There's a little more lenience for corners on class older cards than new modern cards. True or false? There can be.

I mean, yeah. I mean, you know, everyone wants to, you know, go with the, the, the, the, The fact that it should be consistent to what you're doing and whatever, everything should, grading a 2000, you know, car or 2026 card to a, you know, 1966 card. You know, it should be that way. But the cards are different because we're dealing with paper with 66 cart, you know, 66 tops. You're dealing with plastic with 2026. So the cards, the cards wear is different.

So the interpretation of what, what's out of bounds for an eight, what's out of bounds for a nine. and in those two areas are more subjective. So you might have more tolerance than on an older card, vintage card on a perfectly square corner being a 10. It might be, what would be a 10 and a vintage card might be a 9 on a modern card? Well, I don't know it could be an nice five. I know it's not apples to apples because like you just said paper versus plastic.

Yeah, it's paper versus plastic. it's how the wear is associated in terms of how you're kind of identifying the grade that you want to associate to the card and it's not just one thing too i mean if you have a you know 66 tops and everything's there and that card center that card traditionally comes really off center it has a lot of print effect that comes with it the back centering's always trash so you know you take all those things in consideration and you know you come up with it i will say though that if you have a corner hit it's not going to go 10 it shouldn't go 10 and when we talk about 10 two, we're talking about gem mint.

We're not talking about 10 pristine. We're not talking about 10 flawless. 10 gem mint can have, you know, subtle little defects or flaws on the card. You know, so if it had a little hit on the back, the corner is square, but it's just a little touch, you know, you're talking nine, possible 9, 5. If everything else was there in totality of the card, though. So it has to be awesome to kind of carry it over the defect or the flaw that is kind of like, you know,

identifiable, like on a corner or whatever. So what am I seeing here again, Mike Baker, authenticated, Mike Baker, World's Greatest Grater here with us on,

pledging nation. But, but, but, the, this corner here, we're on the, we're on the 66,

we'd turn 66, Willie May's, tops. What are we seeing? Okay. So, first off, we're looking at the number one

card in the set. So the number one card in the set is always, going to be more temperamental and condition sensitive because that sits in the front of the two, three, four, five right behind it. Usually this card has bandmarks or something to kind of keep it. It's always the first one to be grabbed in terms of how it was stored. So that's always the first and last card are always kind of a condition sensitive card.

They usually sell for a little bit more money, especially when they're a Hall of Famer. So it's good to know, to kind of keep that in the mind why the number one cuts, not just because it's not just because it's the number one card. And because it's a number one card. That's right. Not just like us. You're checking some boxes with this one. What I'm kind of looking at right now on the upper left,

kind of going into like maybe a 64th end of the card, it looks like there's some identifiable wear. Am I picking that off right or is a lighting playing games to me? Yeah, no, you're picking it up. Yeah, there's a little bit there. I saw some of the wear on the front. Immediately I was thinking five, six range, you know, in terms of the two corners that I saw.

also if the corner where on the front, the first two corners that I saw match kind of what we're working with here, I'd say it's like X to X-Mint, which is a five or a six, you know, at the top. It could get maybe a half point because what I saw of the card in the front, it looked fairly decently centered. So centered cards will kind of play into a half point in terms of its overall overall eye pill. That definitely plays into NBA.5 for sure. Yeah. So it definitely, you know, I was crying on the inside when you said the back's usually not centered or is trash. Yeah, that would be affirmative on this one. If we get to this side.

Yeah. It's not horrible, though, because a lot of them will come like, you know, 85, 15, 90, 10. And then it makes more challenging. That has a little bit more corner where they're on the side. It looks like there's even a little bit on the edge there to the left of the corner. Yep. And then we've got this. So as far as cinerine goes, so you got that and let's go to this side.

So we're saying not terrible, but not good. Yeah. I mean, there's just, you know, that's probably average. Is that a little crease there in the black or a wrinkle where the ball go? Yeah. That line right where it says, yep, that's a crease right there or a wrinkle. Yep. Yep.

So that will impact. So let's say the card is like a nine. That right there, if it goes front and back, it's going to be like a four. Yeah. So that right there definitely hurts the overall grade. And so you can have like a perfect card or you think it's a 10 and have something like that. Those also come with modern cards. Sometimes in the manufacturing process, you know, you'll just get weird, you know, manufacturing oddities.

And creases, wrinkles can pop up. and you definitely want to catch those. So some of the lighting and whatnot can kind of play tricks in your head. Yeah. What, um, so how does surface look from what you can see on a digital camera? Yeah. Yeah. How many of the variables can we put against you, Mike?

Yeah. Well, let's go up together now. So what we're looking for here. So right there, you see that wrinkle in the blue and the left? in the left. Yep. Yep. So they're, or most likely a crease goes front and back.

That's pretty heavy. Yep. So that one's going all the way to the top. Yep. So okay. So now we're talking VG, VGX. So that would be three, four range based on the severity of that, you know. So so we were talking about corners.

We're talking about surface. So you take everything into consideration, including the centering on the back. And just kind of like shotguning it digitally. looks definitely like a three. If it didn't have that crease. Yep. Based on centering in corners that you can see digitally, obviously this is an official grade, but are we six, five?

Yeah, probably five or six based on the cornerware. Yeah. Digally. Yep. So a pretty good copy if it doesn't have that crease. And you know what? And this is why the number one card again and the last cards, this is completely consistent with what.

but I would expect to see from a card like this and the number that it is for sure, being the first card. So instead of $7 million, it's only $2 million for sale. That's right. That's right. Say, hey, kid. She wants to love. Yes, I love it. Also had this one, but you know who this guy is?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So is there anything special? What yours is this? This is a six. Is that 66 as well? I love how he could tell just

based on the face. Yeah, of course. It's Pete Rose. It's a big hit machine. He's the greatest hitter of all time. Holy card geeking out, you know? A lot of years checking it out. Is this?

How year was it? It's like his third or fourth year. I can't remember. So his rookies, 63. So that would be his third year card. So a corner there. A little surface.

Actually, his fourth year cards. 63, 64, 65, 66. I think Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame? Yes. I think you should be in the Hall of Fame based on what he did on the field. Yeah, I mean, he was a liar, but we all are at some point in our life. So, I mean, I think his character is one thing, but his play on the field, you know, from that incident, I'm not judging him overall. Yeah.

But he's, but his play on the field sort of. I just don't. You're going to get in. There's, you know, there's those player clauses in the contract where you're representing baseball, you're representing the team and organization. And, you know, if you're doing something out of bounds or whatever, the likelihood of you getting in is really difficult, you know, especially modern era guys.

I mean, him getting in now and Joe Jackson and, you know, obviously gambling in any sports is a big no-no. So, and you get caught doing it, it definitely, you know, I mean, he had to live that and wear that cross for his entire life, basically. So, you know. I know. I still think he should be in. Yeah.

4,000 hits. He wasn't gambling on that. No, he wasn't. More than 4,000. So we're looking at the same type of light corner where it touches. You know, those look like X-Men six type corners to me. Little, little edge issue that you just rolled up on. You can see.

Yeah. That's getting more into like what a rubber band does to a card. And that's exactly, again, profile-wise, what you'd expect to see in some of the vintage stuff. Yep. That corner has been hit pretty good. Is that, what's that? You kind of know the crease, maybe. We like our creases on these cards.

Know what that is? See if I can get it to where you can actually see it. Yep. A little smaller, though. A little smaller. Is it a front and back? So just for your listeners, the difference between a wrinkle, So wrinkle only affects one side of the card, and a crease is going front and back.

And that impacts the grade, too. I don't see it on the back the way we did on the other. Yeah. It looks like it should because it looks fairly, you know, kind of impactful a little bit. But sometimes you'll see something that you almost like would bet your house on it's going to go front and back and it's not. It just got crimped up and it never broke the surface of the back. So. trying to get the light correct here on the

location of those two play a part too if that was near the face it would be judge way harsher or much more impactful flaw than it would be if it's like in a corner or kind of in the field bottom corner just very very unimpactful Mike I mean a really small corner I mean not no impact at all are you saying it actually increases the grade because of the rarity of the location it's in it has originality that's the thing us collectors talk ourselves i mean but you know i i tried to convince myself that a crimp made it a one-on-one you know like a factory crimp you ever heard that argument i i've i've heard that people like um you know oversized cards or miscuts because it shows

the originality from the factory and whatnot so there's no no you know shenanigans or no no question of whether or not the card is what it is so there's there's something for everybody in the community that's for sure or just people like me trying to convince ourselves that it's worth more yeah about that see how that line the black line at the top almost looks like is that yeah is that an imperfection it's a it's a it's a real minor one i mean if we're talking if we're talking nine 10 that would that might be taken to effect based on the other the other the other attributes of the card yeah okay so what's again i know we've kind of breeze through this one center yeah but this is is this another one that's maybe a six but probably a four no with the crease

though probably a crease well with the wrinkle because you're saying that it didn't go through that would probably have four okay all right cool i'm gonna go cry in the back after the show i'm just kidding i uh i knew these uh had flaws and they were bought accordingly, but I will be polishing them up for my display in my box, not to be sold. None of my PC is for sale. That's right. Well, at least when you go into your office and grab the solace that you need, you have

to hit the drink combination to get into it. Yes, I do. Oh, yes. Mike, yes. I'm glad you brought that up. I love it. Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Mr. Pibb, Mountain Dew for you. buddy. I love them all. Yes. I did install if you haven't seen the videos already. And more to become.

I actually filmed another one the other day. I did put a old vintage Pepsi machine door and really the whole box is the entrance to my office. So Mike was down and got to see that. Yeah, it's very cool. Very James Bond. It belongs in a card shop, right? I love it. You got to make yourself different. And that's what makes it, you know, Do you something a little bit better, a little bit different than everybody else, and it brings some, you know, new flare to it, right? I know. Hey, and now I'm making it, you know, like a, you know, the big hitters lounge, you know, come back for the big trades, you know, like, or if you just have something I want,

I'll invite you back. Perfect. Your old kid comes in. I'm like, hey, buddy, you want to come to, uh, I'm like, bring your parents. This isn't weird. I just really like that card you have. I'm going to give you as many mountain dudes as you want. That's great.

until you trade me that card. Yeah. I have a question for you. How's your drive-thru shaping up? It's good. Honestly, it's exactly what it's meant to be. It's a point of discussion and marketing. Conversation starter.

And conversation starter. Yep. What we are going to do to facilitate, like, you know, we're open six days a week. We've been toying around, you know, is it five, six, whatever. We might do a drive-through only day. so that people, you know, so that we can get some things done. Yep. And not have people in the entire store, but it sort of facilitates and becomes useful.

So, hey, you can order a lot or call in or, you know, we're not, I love it. We're not got a mystery shop for you or anything. But like, you can, you know what you want. Come to the window. We'll check you out. So we'll probably facilitate the usage. But it is an attractor of, of business and discussion, maybe more than it is being used. It is a catalyst.

I agree. And that was the point. I'll be honest. I was like, because it didn't really serve a purpose otherwise. And I was like, let's at least make it a marketing and discussion point. It's totally fun. I love it. And I do think there will be, because it's the first two, you don't have people that are used to that.

So they don't know to do that. And I think as we educate more and as we get more business, even though business has been really good, I could see it getting used more, but I really don't care if it gets used, you know, five times ever. Right. Well, part of, part of, you know, the whole collecting experience is like the, you know, is the interaction and, you know, shopping and talking about this at the other, talking about your braves, clumps and tigers, whatever it may be, you know, it has a purpose. But it's, you know, like, I agree. It's great marketing and it'll draw people in for sure. Mike, what's the schedule for MBA?

Any new things coming out? New, you know, I know you've got a lot of, you know, growth happening and all those things. But yeah, what's a quick NBA update? A quick little snapshot is our travel schedule. I just lined out till the end of October. We're going to be pretty much here there everywhere twice a month, at minimum, sometimes three times a month. Leaving for Cleveland tomorrow, going to the Strongsville, Ohio show. We'll be doing the diamond certification on site.

I'm flying to Heritage Auctions Sunday night to do their auction for Diamond Certification on Monday. I get back to headquarters, had a couple days to catch up in the office, and then take off to the Boston Shriners show on Thursday, come back Sunday. And then we're going to be doing on-site card grading at the Dallas show in May. So that'll be a big lift operationally for us to have basically almost our entire office in Dallas facilitating on-site. card grading encapsulation. So that'll be kind of a good precursor for the national because we're going to provide the service there as well. So we can work out some kinks and debug some things and hopefully not make a mess of things

and make it happen. The digital review box, much like what we were just going over with you with digitally looking at cards, I wanted to bring it to your shop and kind of launch it there. I literally picked it up this morning. I saw it. It's awesome. Nice. So I'm looking forward to getting one out to you.

So you'll be able to have your customers put the card underneath it. Digitally would go to us and we'd be able to give instant feedback and have them kind of help vet what to send off or not send off. We haven't expanded into the rock heart area. So like doing this rock hard digital guess the grade type thing is something we've kind of toyed with. But generally speaking is for previously third party graded cards, cards that have already been graded. PSA, SGC, tag, B. GGS and CGC. So we're ramping up, launched our new back-in admin system, which was a big lift.

We've been working on that for almost four months. So that's huge. It's really made us a lot more efficient. We can track things better, make the customer experience much more user-friendly. So we've got a lot of things in the hopper. There's not enough time of the day, as you know. So we're just keep trucking, prioritize the things that have the most impact and keep keep trucking so love it so will you be you'll be grading on site of the national that i hear that

correct okay um and like grading there like turn it in day one get it back day three or so that kind of thing well we'll have uh service lines that you can if you have to have the car back you can get it back in a few hours you can get it back same day okay you'll get back next day so a lot of that's going to be dependent on obviously how much we we get um relative we might gate it to a certain amount based on what we're getting. I don't know. That's what I think with the Dallas show is going to kind of give us some good data to kind of figure out how to approach the national

and how many holders are we bringing? Are we just going to bring the number one holder, which is a two and a half by three and a half, and just kind of stick to 1957 tops to present? You know, so because we have a number of holders, Gouty, T206, you know, Bowman. So there's a ton of stuff. And, you know, that's where it gets really interesting,

both logistically, operationally, expense, all that stuff. There's got to be the business case to kind of like bring your entire office and move it for five days and then make everything seem like it's perfect, you know. I don't know if everybody paid attention there. I just heard a challenge. It's called, we want 20,000 cards brought to MBA at the national. Like, everybody, bring your cards. If you're listening, I'll pay everyone a dollar out of my pocket because I want to get to

10,000 cars for NBA at the national. So I want Mike DeKroye uncle. Like, it's a good thing, though, I'm kidding, but not kidding. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to do 10,000 cards in five days would be like a, that's a lift, you know.

I don't even think the bigger services could pull that. Honestly, at least in a fair amount of time, I think mainly it would be a 10,000 card submissions. Do what you can. Yeah, we're our graders here on aisle 10. hiring graders if you've got a keen eye come down to Mike Baker authenticated we might need that you have to lower your standards for hiring that's one thing I will gate that's why we're gated right now is because we're we're finding the right people that I will say so there

won't be we're not looking just to put stuff out the at the door we could be we could be doing thousands of cards right now a day if we wanted to we're holding it back till we find the right people and then scale appropriately. So our product's pretty awesome. I know, not to chest bump it, but it's pretty legit. I think this is a tin right here. That is a 10.

That is a 10 pristine. Oh, yeah. Our Pokemon ascended heroes that we sent. Mike that he brought and delivered. Let me say, it's the only one we got. So there was no cheating, friends, friends and everything, you know. All that, you know, any new service, too, is going to get scrutin. So, you know, you hold the standard from day one and you keep it going.

That's what builds a consistency and more importantly, the trust. If you build the trust with the collective community, people know what to expect. There's not a lot of highs and lows and you communicate and you're transparent about everything. That's the most important thing. So we'll live and die on that. One of my Quinn Uers, I got three of the same parallel autographed Quinn Ures out of one break, out of one case. three out of 100. There's only 100 made.

I got three of them in one break of Quinn Ewers. That was the one of that you graded. No, it was the craziest thing. It's a $150 card. And he broke, it was 12 packs. It was a break where there's only 12 packs open. They're one pack boxes. So he opened 12 packs and I got three Quinn.

And I had Quinn Ewers as a player. I got a random draw of players. And I got Quinn. I've never seen the odds of that happening, Mike, because it was out of a hundred. So it was a numbered auto at that. I got three out of 100 out of one case break. I would have,

as soon as I got the third one, I would have booked a ticket to Vegas and kept the roll going. Honestly, it's probably like, the odds are probably like one in 250,000. Like, it's crazy. Like,

yeah, I guess it's good for you. I mean, I wish it's Jackson Dart, but, you know, Quinn's a good player. It's still a hundred-bitty-dard card.

So I think I spent like 40 bucks on and got, yeah, five dollars. and actually more because now I have a 9.5 graded meant NBA of the card. So I got one of the three. The best one that we thought had the best chance. And we were close.

9.5, nothing to sneeze at. I was the one that that picked which out of the three we were sending. He chose wisely. Well, he's got the eye. Good job, boss. Yep. She has to start looking at more cards. Yeah, right?

I had Cole check my work, don't worry. Well, Cole's pretty good, too. Mike. The Clector Nation, uh, Clector station, uh, staff. They all have a good eye. Yeah, exactly. We got to have a, uh, Mike dropped the website, uh, and I know you know, you said all the locations, but the website, social, all that stuff.

Yeah, basically. Thank you. It's, um, NBA diamond.com is the website and NBA diamonds with us for Instagram. We have our show schedule posted. Um, please. we're really aggressive going out there, shaking hands and kissing babies. So talking about NBA, talking about the industry. So if you're around any of those shows, come on by and say hi.

Look, guys, it's clear that Mike and I have a relationship, but it's because I like him because he's transparent. I'm raw. I'm real. He is. Pun intended here in the hobby. But I'm telling you, this is what you want. We talk about grading. We talk about this black box.

And look, Mike's been with the best, the biggest, all those. He's done all those things. But he's real. don't forget that go support this guy support what they're doing in NBA diamonds because I do appreciate you Mike thank you thank you're having me always hey guys the collector nation dot com go visit the site learn more about what we're doing and of course the app is always out there and hey if you want to see more about what we're doing in the store the collector station dot com you know where I'm at I'm at Ryan offered on Instagram that's where to hit me I read every

DM get hundreds a week send me more more more I love you appreciate you we'll see next time on Collector Nation. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at Collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.