Green Light with Chris Long - Ken Goldin! Sports Movie Memorabilia, Famous Card Sales & Goldin Auctions!

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

(2:04) - Ken Goldin of Goldin Auctions Talks Famous (6:00) - Ken Goldin on Famous Sports Movie Memorabilia, Biggest Baseball Card Sales and Ken’s Personal Collection. (25:00) - How Current Athlete Popularity Affects Card Values. (31:10) - Favorite Athlete Autographs of All Time. (46:30) - The Art to Unboxing Cards and What Can Go Wrong. (51:30) - Is It Out There: Pricing Random Famous Sports Items. Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light Tube YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/GreenLightTube1 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. https://www.greenlightpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tennessee, y'all, 2. 1-800-9-9-7-89. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. In our bonus episode today, we've got Ken Golden of Golden Auctions. He's going to run through famous movie sports memorabilia, how much that would be worth. It was a real item. His biggest card sales, how to successfully pull off an unboxing without damaging any cards, and valuing famous sports items if they're up for sale.

Y'all enjoy Ken and our little bonus episode, take care. All right, this is a treat for you today. Thanks for checking us out this afternoon. you're listening on Wednesday afternoon. I hope you heard this morning's pod, me and Bo Allen with some cameos from guys like Lane Johnson and Carl Nassib, unexpected cameos. That was a lot of fun. There was some good, clean football talk in that pod. But this is a fun interview, man. I had a great time meeting Ken Golden. He's the type of guy that you want to hang out with. Honestly, I didn't want him to leave i wanted the interview to go longer but we had him for about an hour um and he's an

incredible story i mean this is a guy who came up kind of hustling people for baseball cards yep um you know like just shaking people down asking what they had in their in their house like what did they have in their collection and he would kind of take flyers on these cards and buy them for low and find out that some worth a fuck ton of money decades later he's got his own golden auctions deal and he's sold cards for millions of dollars in fact since we recorded this podcast a couple weeks ago which was in the old studio Jay feels like a world away what happened Matt yes so the record for the most expensive card ever sold had been held by Ken Golden with the

Honest Wagner card that you'll hear about and it's since been broken by the 1952 Mickey Mantle that you'll also hear about but I would imagine Ken we'll probably break it again. And he was awesome. Doesn't talk just about like cards or memorabilia. It talks about meeting various people throughout his career. Like talked about meeting young Kobe Bryant. It's a really great interview.

I hope you all enjoy. Yeah. And that was a good poll by by Kingston there because I don't like I love cards. I liked cards when I was a kid. I think they're cool, but I've never collected them. Like I've never sold them. I collected them as a kid. But like as an adult, I've never, when people open packs and stuff,

I never understood what they were doing. Matt was like, hey, check this Ken Golden guy out. And I said, I don't know, do I want to interview a guy about cards? What would I ask him? But it turns out we had a great time. So hopefully you enjoy this. And again, if you haven't yet, check out this morning's football breakdown with Bo Allen, Trench Talk.

Tuesday Trench Talk. It had a ring to it, but it's Wednesday for y'all. You know, we record on Tuesdays for Wednesdays. So enjoy Ken Golden. Check out all our other stuff as well. Hey, in a quick, you know, I don't do this often, but go look at the YouTube channel. right green light to green light tube football season brings back many traditions we know and love touchdown dances pick sixes strip sacks game winning sacks tackles hitting the quarterback and watching it all with friends in a cooler miller light the action on the field

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It's Miller Time. official beer partner of the Greenlight podcast. Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. So I've got Ken Golden here is the biggest name in sports memorabilia. Some people call them the King of Cards at Ken Golden on IG. Ken, one of my first questions I had, or actually one of the last questions I thought of before you popped on the Zoom, is what about sports movie memorabilia? And you pop on and you have on what?

So I happen to be wearing, and we didn't prepare this. No. So I happened to be wearing Bill Bergey's jersey. And you can see right here, the spirit of, you know, this bicentennial patch they wore in 1976 when the movie took place from the movie Invincible, Mark Wahlberg. Yeah. So it is, you know, it's, you know, Bergey, you know, if you don't know, if you're too young, is perhaps the greatest linebacker in Eagle's history.

Wow. Incredible. I mean, and how much does something like that go for? Because that was like you got, there's all sorts of iconic movie props that are probably floating around out there and going for a lot of money.

Yeah, I mean, it depends. Something like this is probably, you know, if it was a real burgy jersey from 76, it'd probably be about, you know,

10 grand. Yeah. This might be, because it was used in a well-known movie, might be $800 to $1,200. Okay, got it. How about the bat from the natural? What do you put?

Oh, that would be amazing. Yeah, that, I think that would be, you know, it's shattered, of course, but if you have the original. I would think, I would think that somebody might be willing to pay $25 or $50,000, the most valuable piece of movie sports use memorabilia ever.

I would say by far would have to be in the pride of the Yankees. Going back to, what was in 1941, Luke Eric's story. Because Babe Ruth played himself and he had a Yankee jersey. So if you had the Babe Ruth uniform that Babe Ruth wore playing himself in that movie, Babe Ruth's stuff goes so expensive. That could be a million dollars. That's incredible. That's incredible.

Let's start with baseball. You just sold the most expensive card ever. Congratulations. Tell us about that one. Sure. It was a 1909 T-209 T-206 Honus Wagner. And for those of you, actually, want me to show something interesting?

Yeah. You got to kind of run off cameras with that? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. This is like an unboxing. Yeah, man. So the story behind the T-2-6-Honis Wagg is, for those you don't know,

is, Jonas Wagner was, you know, the greatest baseball player at the turn of the century. Ty Cobb was about 10 years younger than Wagner and then he came. So in 1909, the American Tobacco Company issued the, like, first really large card set, 523 cards. You had Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Christy Matthewson, and Honest Wagner. actually four of the first five inductees into the baseball Hall of Fame plus Babe Ruth was the fifth.

And it was so popular, but what they did was they stuffed these little tiny cards in packs of cigarettes. So if the kids wanted to get these cards, because obviously the kids collected it, they literally had to buy packs of cigarettes, which was legal at the time. That's when they had cocaine and the Coca-Cola and everything. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So the rumor has it that Wagner did not want to promote tobacco the kits. Yeah. And his card was pulled from production. And, you know, it could have been that or it could have been they didn't pay him any soon. Who knows, right?

But while there are tens of thousands of every other card in the set that were produced and in existence, there were under 100 of the Wagner. And there are only 46 known. So we sold, and they're all like most of them in garbage condition. Yeah. So the card we sold was graded on a scale of 1 to 10, a 2. A 2. You know, which is above average, but not the highest rated by far. And we sold it for 7.25 million. A 2.

A 2. Now, that card originally sold earlier for about like $360,000 the last time that individual card sold. If you want to know what a Wagner looks like, and that's why. There it is. Okay. So this is not, this is a lesser grade card. This is just authentic because somebody tried to clean this up, but this tells you there's the iconic picture. And here's the key. Look at this in the back. No stats, no nothing. Just buy your cigarettes. Jeez. And how about Honest Wagner being ahead of the game on cigarettes? Exactly. So that makes it more valuable to me. That is so cool. And what to go for? Oh, so the card went for $7.25 million.

So if someone would have that card in like a five or even like above that, like which is probably impossible or if they do find it, does that mean like that set the value right there, that two, that now if someone comes with a five, that means the five is going to be worth like $30 million or up there? Bingo. The exact, the exact correct number is $30 million. Look at you. Oh my God. Ken, don't take Dr. Fax. Ken's like, come work for me. I hear there's a Mickey Mantle out there somewhere that's worth up in the 20s, maybe,

the 1951? Yeah, there's a 19-1 ball and that's his rookie card. There's one PSA 10, and that card would have to be, I just did a video on that, and that card would have to be, I'd say probably 20 million plus, but the more famous card is his 1952 Tops card. That they made more of. It was card number 311, but the key with that card is it's the first major set of the,

let's call it the modern era or golden era, the Tops area, you know, Toppsbury, which everybody grew up on Tops. That card, there are three of them in a perfect rate of PSA 10. None of them have traded in the past 20 years. I personally offered $28 million for one of those cards on behalf of a client and was turned down. So you have to think that all those cards are worth well over $30 million. Some amazing stuff.

We fucked up, Nate. No, I told you what to. We should have been Ken Golden. Oh, yeah. You know, like, I'm like my new hero. So about your personal collection. What's one of your favorite things in your personal collection? have something that, you know, even if it's not maybe everybody else's favorite, but maybe has a,

I don't know, a little bit more meaning to you? Sure. Well, I have a couple favorites. You know, I personally collect a lot of different stuff, but I collect game used. So I have, you know, typically baseball primarily because that's where the, you know, in terms of collecting, you know, in, in, in my, on cards, you've got basketball, football, baseball, soccer are all very popular and modern. But when you go to vintage stuff, it's more of,

it's more like mostly baseball, all the records are baseball. So my, I would say my most valuable piece is a bat that Babe Ruth used in the 1927 season when he hit 60 home runs and that he kept at his house. And when he passed, his wife Claire Ruth kept it. And when the Babe Ruth Museum opened in 1973, she gave it to the Babe Ruth Museum and basically said, hey, this is Babe's favorite bat from the 27 season.

He kept it. And it's been rated by PSA as a PSA 10. So who knows how many home runs that was used to help set the record back in 1927 when he hit 60. So that's easily my most valuable. That's a seven figure. one of my favorite items is kind of, it's worth something old to me. And, you know, I, I've been starting this business a long time ago, literally when I was a teenager, and I was lucky enough to have a relationship with Mickey Mell.

And he signed autographs for him. And I got married very young in 1991. And I went on my honeymoon. when I came back and Mickey was joking me about getting married I don't get married don't get married so I got married and I came back to my honeymoon

and waiting on my desk was an autographed picture from Mickey Mantle that said hey Ken is married like Luna I've been married two weeks just got back from Mexico hey Ken is married life all's cracked up to be all you thought would be cracked up to be and I have that

I have that in my keep that like behind me in my office that's so good And of course, I'm on my second wife now. Mickey Mantle, the curse of Mickey Mantle. Didn't he just pop up, wasn't it Mickey Mantle that popped up in the story about him and the bleachers and everything? It's making that story more and more believable. Everyone's trying to tell me that it's not real.

And I'm like, this sounds like a real story. Yeah, dude. I would say, knowing Mickey personally, having gone out with him, I would say that he definitely is a jokester. Yeah. But that certainly could have happened. Could have happened. So how did you get your start doing this?

I collected as a kid, you know, you know, really is like an eight, nine, 10 year old kid. But then the first real transaction I did, I was 12. And I had a friend over my house in my basement. And I had this electric race car set that, you know, we were playing with. And he said, would you trade me your car set? and I immediately said yes for your baseball card collection. So he brought his baseball card collection over to my house and picked up the race car set. And I realized at the time, the cards were probably worth a couple hundred dollars,

and the race card track was probably worth $29. But this is before the internet, before cell phones, before price guide. So nobody knew what the stuff was worth. But I did that to start buying and selling. and I found out that there was like an underground network of people who bought and sold cards. So I started advertising, like literally I would take an ad out in the Philadelphia Inquirer or the South Jersey Courier Post and the classifieds, like paying cash for cards. And people would like bring me their cards for cash. And I would buy stuff like Thai Cobb cards from 1909 for like a buck.

Nobody knew what they were worth. I was a 15 year old kid. and I grew it into a business and I started a company with my father in 1986 called Scoreboard and we ended up getting into producing trading cards. So I don't know if is a kid you ever collected the classic brand of trading cards or NFL Proline. So NFL Proline was one of, you know, remember all the autographs and the players wives signed an autographs and things like that.

But all the draft picks like Kobe Bryant's first card from Lower Merriott and Shaq at LSU, those were all my company. And, you know, I did that for a number of years. And finally, I started Golden in 2012, took $100,000 out of the bank, started the company, and took a chance of myself. And it worked. Incredible. And you just sold your auction house recently?

Yeah, we merged. So Steve Cohen, I took a $45 million investment in February of 2021. And then later that year, a company called Collectors Holdings, which is owned, you know, I guess I'm one of the largest owner owners now. I'm probably the fifth largest owner now, but was owned by Nat Turner, Dan Sunheim of D1 investments. And the famous name that everybody likes to quote is Steve Cohen because he owns the New York Mets. I agreed to merge with them

and now I'm part of collector's holdings which is Owens PSA and it's like a $4 billion company. Let me ask you this. So when you were starting out and you first started to buy other people's cards when you put that ad in the paper was fakes and replicas a big thing back then or like were you running into like, like finding out later on down the line, hey, like I got sold fake cards here or like how

how was that process working that process back then like you're talking about without the internet around and and things of that sort now that you can kind of figure those things out. The good news is back then most of the cards weren't worth much. So I did not have to worry about that. There were literally there were three cards that were counterfeit a lot. And one of them always it was too easy because it was a T-206 Wagner and it said like reprint and some people would take it and they would rough it up and doctor it up so people might think it's real but the two big cards back in the day uh one was in 1952 tops mickey manel you know there were a lot of reprints of that people tried to pawn off and i i never got taken i almost did but i saw the cards in person

and i was able to touch it and i said okay this this doesn't feel right um the other card that was almost impossible for people to tell because he was know the hit king back then and was so popular. And, you know, before the band from baseball was P. Rose, his 1963 rookie card, people would run off, you know, just print those cards to the Cal came home. But if you knew cards, you can see that the image was a little fuzzy and it's off. And I try and, you know, people send me all the time, you know, and they DM me or if they know me, they text me, oh, I found this. Oh, this is worth a million dollars. I said, no, it's worth a penny.

And they go, how do you know? And I go over 40 years of experience. But, you know, literally it's like some of these tellers, they can just touch a dollar bill and they don't need to stick. They can just look at it's fake. Same thing. If you know cards, like you can touch this and say, okay, fine, this is, this is real, where you can touch it and say, no, this is no good. And it's tough to explain the people because, you know, they always want to get a second opinion. And I'm like, no, I'm Ken Gold.

You don't be a second opinion. If you're here in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, or right here in Virginia, and you haven't tried the WinBet app yet. I have great news for you. WinBet is now offering $200 in free bets for new users. That's right, $200, 200 big ones on a $50 bet. Winbet is basically giving you free money. Don't turn that down.

Don't pass that up. Download the WinBet app today. Terms and conditions apply. It must be 21 or older and present in a state where WinBet is available. Gambling problem in Arizona, call 1,800 Next Step in Colorado. Indiana, New Jersey, and Virginia, call 1-800 gambler, and in Michigan, 1-800-2707-1-17. Tennessee, y'all 2, 1-8009-9-9. You just touched on Pete Rose, you know, the gambling stuff, the Hall of Fame debate,

but it made me think about how cards might be affected positively or negatively as somebody's legacy progresses. You know, like an O.J. Simpson kind of deal, not to make. a leap from gambling to murder. But, you know, I'm sure there's a big market for OJ's stuff. Does it become more valuable because of everything that's happened or less valuable? And like, could it be, you know, like a Pat McAfee card? You know, like a Pat McAfee card. Pat McAfee was a great punter. People probably didn't buy his card a lot, but then his media career changed the trajectory of maybe what that card's worth. How does what happens after somebody's playing days

or at the tail end of their playing days affect the value of their card? It could affect a lot of it. In the case of OJ, he lost for about a year, you know, when the whole chase was going on and when he was in prison, his autographs were in an all-time high because, honestly, he was on suicide watch. And I remember, I remember, like, people are calling up and trying to, you know, sell us autographs of Simpson. We just stayed away from that.

But, you know, that can greatly, you know, affect it, you know, but his stuff is, significantly less valuable. You know, if you look at O.J. Simpson, and this player came along a little bit later in his career than OJ, but it's comparable, comparable type of player. You know, same position, you know, same greatness, Walter Payton. I mean, you look at the values of Walter Payton cards to O.J. Simpson. OJ is literally probably less than 10% of a Walter Payton's value.

And it's all, you know, all because of that. things can happen after the career. Look at and I'm just going to throw it. I'm an equal opportunity critic, so I'll talk about everything under the spectrum and I'll just give my opinion. I'm not political in any way, but you look at Kurt Scho. I was going to ask you about Kurt Schilling.

Okay, so that's why I said this. So, you know, Kurt Schilling is somebody who should be on the Hall of Fame. I thought if he's not a first ballot, he certainly should have been the first couple. I mean, he literally from what he did in 2001 and what he with Arizona and going to the Red Sox is historic. You know, the guy should be in the Hall of Fame. Look at his baseball stats. He should be.

But it's a human process. It's not an artificial intelligence process. You have real people making these decisions and they make value judgments on their judgments. So therefore, because Kurt is so outlandish and so outspoken and he is who he is, he did not get into, he was not elected into the base. Hall of Fame by the writers. I believe the players will end up putting him in. But that's a perfect example, and he didn't even, he didn't even commit a crime. It's not like, oh, they found that afterwards he was dealing drugs, or they found that afterwards he was taking steroids, or they found that afterwards, you know, he committed, you know,

committed a crime. He didn't do anything like that. He just, you know, had a really, really big mouth and said a lot of, you know, negative things, and it affected his livelihood. An example, a modern example, just happened last week. Fernando Tatis Jr. Right. I mean, I spoke to Darren Ravelle and he used my quote. And I said, I think this guy, if you look at the value of all of his cards today and the value of all the autograph memorabilia and game use memorabilia his career would produce and the decline in the value, I think it could be $100 million impact. Wow.

what happened. Wow. That's insane. And obviously there's a, you know, like a lot of our most famous baseball players of all time played in the, for people my age, played in the steroid era. So there's always that kind of conversation probably. And then with the Kurt Schilling thing, I kind of wonder because, you know, half the population, because of the things you said are probably like, I'm out of the market on Kurt Schilling memorabilia. I don't know if that's about right. But, but then the other half, you wonder if there's a lot of people that are like, oh, hell yeah, I'm more. I'm more, app to buy Kurt Schilling. So it's like it's probably a tough equation to to complete in your head as you try to prospect what's going to happen. And this is a perfect time to tell,

Dan, to say what I say about collectibles. If you want to collect for enjoyment, buy what you like. If you want to collect for money or investment, buy what everybody else is like. Everyone else likes. So Kurt Schilling, there's no reason to take a risk. Okay, I personally, I personally think, again, I personally think he's going to get in the Hall of Fame. But, you know, if somebody, if somebody, I'm trying to think of a really, maybe kind of a really aggressive, offensive, maybe even slightly dirty player, but who only played to win and didn't do anything wrong. Like, like a tie, like, you know, go back and go back in the day, say Ty Cobb.

Conrad Dobler. Okay. That's a football example of somebody I think is one of the OG dirt bags. Okay, okay. But, you know, if he's playing to win and he's playing aggressively and he's not, you know, doing anything outside of the field, it's not going to affect his values. You do something where you offend a percentage of the population, you know, whether you follow that, that path or not, there's no reason to buy that person. There's so many players that start with a clean slate, why invest in somebody that in some people's minds are going to be tainted or in some people's mind or in some percentage of the hobby, they will never buy this guy's card because they think he's unlikable. And the likeness factor, I mean, look at the lightness factor is so important. Look, you know, Joe Namath does not have the career accomplishments that a lot of these other

quarterbacks have. No, some people say he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. Exactly. But he's in New York and he had, you know, he had a certain way. about him and a confidence and a swagger. People like him. Derek Jeter is not the greatest baseball player of all time.

He's not the greatest shortstop of all time, okay? But he is a winner. People like him. They want to own his product and two completely opposite spectrums of the world because

people who saw the captain recently, Alex Rodriguez stuff, does not sell for a good percentage of Derek Jeter sells for and then somebody legendary who has been an unbelievable leader in this country but because people when he played either didn't like his personality or thought he was standoffish or wasn't exciting kareem abdul jabar yeah his stuff is drastically underpriced when you compare to some of these other players that's insane i mean yeah from where i sit but of course it depends on where you sit and what you think

But like Kareem to me is a legend in every sense of the word. So yeah. And what you're saying that, do you think that the card market is maybe going to change? Because a lot of stuff now is on like guys can be popular off the field, like very, very popular that can move the market for them. And do you think that that potentially will change the market? Like when it comes to, hey, like cards,

like the prices probably aren't going to go up and down based off if this guy has a good season or not. It's more going to be based off of how popular was this guy like off the field and how like many views or clicks and how his name is being generated like at that like particular time. It's sport related. I think in baseball, the single most important thing is personal statistics. More so than championships. In football and basketball, it's really championships. Look at the pricing difference between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, for example. It is night and day, and that's purely a factor of the, you know, how many Super Bowls, each one.

I think that people who are not amazing performers or amazing athletes on the field, but accomplish things off the field and become immensely popular. It can increase the value of the card, but I'd rather somebody put up a video game statistics, and I don't care of the dullest person in the world. But an example where somebody's popularity in a different area has raised the price of their cards is Dwayne Johnson, the Rock. He has a Bumblebee Tuna card from Miami when he played with Miami. And that card, you know, it's going up and down, up and down, but it's sold as high as like $75,000 and $80,000 for a perfect 10 of that card. And the guy never made it to the NFL. Need a Roman, Roman Raines, Georgia Tech football card.

you know like there's probably a few of these out there that probably a bunch yeah so Greg Williams was my defensive coordinator I'm not going to ask you about a Greg Williams the tops card but Greg Williams my guy he used to give me shit all the time because when I wrote my name when I did my autograph it was scribbly you know he'd say you know you could tell somebody's by somebody signature how much they care about it and this that and the third that having been said who's got the prettiest autograph out there in your opinion. And then who's got the ugliest of high value that you're like, man, that's an eyesore, but it goes for a lot of money.

Oh, gosh. Okay. So in football examples, I always, my two favorite autographs were always Johnny Unitas, who was every letter was perfect. And he took it, whether it was his first autograph or 800th, every letter was. perfect he cared and joe name it joe named he wrote it so big he wanted everyone to read his everyone to read his name and know it um bad i i keep going to it there are so many people that are bad autographs so i can tell you look at look at open up open up a box of 2022 pinini and look at

some of the cards literally some of these guys have a line and that's their autograph um one of the most famous players who I was unhappy with because I worked with them and like I literally hounded them to sign leader was Bo Jackson back in the day you you you couldn't read you couldn't read a thing yeah but what I find is this players get older they do if they care they they do try and say okay fine my autographs important to people I want to sign leader Barry Bonds is a perfect example Barry Bonds who just you know I'm Very close to Barry. So if it's any line of questioning, I want to get that out there.

But Barry had a very messy autograph. It looked like BB. I'm seeing that now. It used to be like a B. I couldn't even tell what it is. Three letters. Yeah. Yeah.

And now you look at it and it is, you know, it is, in fact, here we go. So this is, this is an old school Barry Bonds. And this is, he was nice. It was nicer because he was doing it for me. Yes. So I don't know if you could see it, but that was back, Bobby and Barry, to Ken, and then, you know, it skips the letters. But to be fair to Bo Jackson, like, Bo is a tough thing to write out and make look pretty. And B is a tough.

Uppercase B and cursive is tough, you know? So it kind of depends on the luck of the draw. Just look, just, you know, you could, some of the Bo Jackson's, you literally just could have seen BJ. Okay? Hey, by the way, Howie Long's got a beautiful signature. I don't even see how he long. He really takes his time with that thing. And I also think it's kind of a product of,

I don't know what you think about this, but back in the day, like guys like that would have to sign autographs and everything. But the access is greater now. So I would assume you might sign more autographs as a contemporary athlete. And then you sign for money more. So like guys have more practice now to like hone their, their autograph, but they also probably are like, fuck, I've done 20,000 of these. Like, I got to hurry.

Whereas, like, back in the day, it's like, I don't know. We're guys signing less. Oh, no, they were signing less. Um, the card deals are certainly less. I mean, I know some of these card companies literally may have a guy signed 20,000 trading cards. I mean, these guys are boxes and boxes, especially, especially the, um, especially the, um, when I had classic, I used to put in a legibility clause. So in their contract, I used to say that your autograph, you can see every letter at a sample is here, and I'd have an exhibit A, and I'd make them sign their autograph on a blank piece of paper. And then I'd wanted to look like that. Even Kobe Bryant, because I signed him in 1996 right out of high school. I met him in my office at the time was in Sherry Hill, New Jersey,

and he was outside of Billy. So his dad took him to my office in like, in, I think the winter of 96. So I knew all these stories about is he going to go to LaSalle or is he going to go to the Duke. Not going to happen because Joe Bryant was sitting in my office with his son and saying, Kobe, meet Mr. Golden. He just called me Mr. Golden. This is the guy who is going to sign your first contract with you. So he signed his full name, Kobe Bryant. So if you look at all the old classic cards from his first year or two, it's all signed Kobe Bryant. Then as he got older and got after a different contract, he just signed Kobe 8. And what were your impressions of Kobe, like meeting him as a kid? That's pretty cool.

Oh, look, Kobe was amazing. He was very, very intelligent. He was obviously incredibly talented. And, you know, I thought it was terrific. And when he was taken by, drafted by the Lakers, he was represented by a guy named Arn Tellum, and I had a great relationship with Arn, and I actually flew out to California and met Kobe and his met with Kobe and his sisters and helped him set up his fan club out there. That is so cool. That is so cool. How about for you like biggest, oh man, regrets? You're like, I should have bought that. Well, I've got a lot of regrets, but the two

biggest regrets I would have, one would just be in general. I knew and met everybody. And I'm not talking just like, like you can go from Montana and Namath, but I'm talking Muhammad Ali, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Wayne Gretzky, you know, everybody, you know, just absolutely crazy. Ted Williams, you look at all, all, all the legends from all the sports. I never asked for anything. So when I had these contracts, like if I was having an appearance contract or a trading card contract or an autograph contract, I'm sure I could have said, hey, by the way, do you have Mickey, do you have any of your old stuff?

Joe, do you have any of your old stuff? Can we get some of it and put it in the contract? So I never got anything when I had the access. So that's number one. Number two, getting back to this card, when they settled a dispute with Wagner to prove that they stopped production, they did. gave him his proof strip, which was an uncut strip of five cards and a blank back. And with all that strip of five was four other players, one of which was Sai Young. So they sent him the front of five cards and the back was nothing on the back.

No, no tobacco, it was pure blank back. That was owned for many years by a well-known collector named Barry Halper until he sold his collection in 1990s. I bought it. I bought it for $62,000 in like 2000. After the financial crisis in 2008, as I'm watching the TV, watching the stocks go down every day and getting killed, somebody said they had a buyer for me and I can double my money. I can get $125,000.

I didn't know I'd be opening up golden auctions three years later. So I took the profit. now that would probably be worth about $7 million. No. Well, good thing there's money lying around for you now. But, yeah, if you didn't open up the auction house and everything, I bet you're like, damn, dude. What about the Negro leagues, like African-American players way back in the day? How did that affect the printing of cards?

Like, were they printing cards for some of our greatest baseball players that didn't get to play in the MLB? and how's the market on cards like that? Sure. So the answer is they were not included in any of the major sets. You can go back to T206 from the early 1900s. You can go back to the candy and gum cards that were made in the 20s. You can go back to the famous sets, you know, those gouty sets from the 30s where you see the Babe Ruth, the Lou Gehrig cards, Jimmy Foxx, they weren't there. They were in none.

There was no commingling of trading cards. There were some cards, there were some cards produced in the 1940s, typically regional and typically foreign. Like there were some Cuban cards, things like that. But like finding a Josh Gibson card, a pre-MLB Satchel Page card, you know, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, Cooppa Bell, any of these guys, you know, virtually impossible. Wow. What would it be worth to find a satchel page card in like a seven condition or something? Well, there's a couple things that guard the price of a card that create the price. One is the player and the condition and the rarity. But the most important is probably the popularity of the set.

So a satchel page card, if he was in a 1930s gouty set, would probably have a similar price of a Lugaric card. but a satchel page card in these so many people know and collect that set. Right. You know, that's why the Wagner's so important. There are, there are Honest Wagner cards that are much rarer than there's like 46 known, that there are rarer that there's only one or two known that sell for a fraction because nobody cares about the set. The great thing about that set is everybody's trying to complete it and nobody can

complete it. Same thing here. The fact that they weren't included in these mainstream sets that people know of, Most people don't want to get just a random one card. It's the only one known and it's unusual, which means it could be a $100,000 card. But literally, if you had the best satchel page in the Negro leagues was in like a 1930s gouty set, along with Ruth and Garrick where you should have been. And you had one in a PSA 10, you know, it could easily be a $3, $4 million card. Man.

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I asked you about, you know, any near misses, do you know of stories or have you been unfortunate enough to do something like this where you you fuck up a really valuable card by accident? I've heard it happen. Luckily, it is, luckily it has never happened to me. The most, the most, the funniest thing that happened to me ever, I would say this is, So my son Paul is nine years old.

And the funny thing is I went to try and find if I printed out a picture and I couldn't find it. And I'm not going to show you my phone. I have to dig for it. So like after the Eagles won the Super Bowl, we went to a show and we took a picture and Paul was only four. And he was in a bad mood that day

and everybody he's with, he's sitting there turning the other way and crying. So now he just turned nine last week. It only does play sports. I'd love to find that picture and show him again. So he and I break cards together on, and we do, during COVID, we did it like every single day and we would do live videos. So this is a 1996 Kobe Chrome refractor. It is a very valuable card. And you'll see it's pedigree, Paul's Poles, which means that he pulled it live. PSA gave me a pedigree for the cards we opened up live together. So what happened was is we're opening up the packs

and he pulled it and so wow it's a Kobe rookie look how shiny it is and I realized it's a refractor and I went to

take the card out of his hand light away boom right on the mat so I don't know if it would have been a 10 were not for that to happen but that that's probably

the biggest miss happened luckily it was my own card however I have literally known people who have have taken cards that were from the 70s and 80s and 90s before the third party grading. And they were in these screw down and they were these tight screw downs really tight. And they literally unscrew it.

And the print, yep, you got it. You got it. Peels off the face feels off the card. Oh, that's got to be the worst sound you ever hear. Oh, my goodness. What about that? Happened to a lot of 86 Fleer Jordans. So with that, like, is that gradable still?

like what condition does a card have to be in for it not to be gradable like you said the the most thing it was a two you got you got that card to be great and it looked decent to me my dumb ass it looks really good so like what like yeah what does a card condition have to be where it's like you know what we're we're not even great in this well they've actually sold half of a hones wagoner before for like 800 i think it went this year for like under a million but over 500 000 okay half The card? Yeah, you literally, the card was you saw like a left half of the card. You know, but they graded it.

Typically, the worst grade is authentic. If a card, and again, I don't want people to think, okay, so there's the Grom. I don't even want to do that to the Grom, but, okay, you know, Willie Calhoun, no one's going to cry over Willie Calhoun's card. Okay? This is a new tops card. So, like, literally, if you did that. Oh, Willie Calhoun. And you're missing the corner.

I could send this in. They would grade it and they would not give it a numerical grade. They would give it an A for authentic. Possibly an authentic altered because I ripped it. But that's the lowest grade you can get. You know, a card I think has to be at least fully intact to get a grade of one, which is poor. If it's missing a piece, then they'll slab it authentic. And if it's too mangled up where you can't tell what it is, then it won't get, you know, then they won't grade it.

Well, we just, and Matt has a question in a second, but we got a Willie Calhoun ripped by Ken Golden here and it's an authentic. So we could sell that motherfucker. Matt, what you got? Hey, can I saw you guys are going to rip 86 Fleer tonight on IG? Like, what are your expectations or hopes for that box? How likely is it to pull a PSA 10 Jordan? And how fun is it to just open that iconic box? Oh, let me take that in any order. So to pull a PSA 10 Jordan out of a 1986 flare box is incredibly difficult. I would say maybe one out of every 200 or maybe 500. I don't have the pop report in front of me to tell you we'd get a PSA 10. As an example, and I'll do a name drop,

but I'm sure you guys know this. The last time I opened an 86th clear box was a couple months ago and I live streamed it with Drake. Yeah. And we pulled six Michael Jordan rookie cards. We pulled three stickers and three rookies. We got no. tens and we got no nines. Okay. They were, you know, they were, they were close, but there were no nines and no tens. And everyone who saw that, they looked really, really clean. So the odds of pulling it out and having it be a 10 are very difficult. First of all, for two reasons. Number one is the production quality back in 1986 wasn't meant to get cards graded. Yeah. The second reason is that the cards have been inside a friggin wax box inside wax packs for how good is my math

36 years they're rattling around with gum and this and that they're being transported they're liable to have ding corners notches on the edges and things like that but the goal tonight is I want I love to get three rookie stickers and three rookies if I get four of something it's a miracle but basically I just wanted to be a clean box problem free. I'd like to get three rookie stickers. I'd like to get between two and four regular rookies. And I hope they're nice looking. And man, if we got a 10, that would be unbelievable.

But anytime you open up a box, it's a $200,000 plus box, it's kind of exciting, but also to some kind of nerve-wracking. So that box is 200 grand to buy. So like the buy end to sit at the table is 200 grand. And then the upside of pulling a card like that could be, you know, That box could be worth what? And top at millions. Well, yeah.

What you have to look at is most people wouldn't buy a box. You look at the packs. Like in a pack, in a box break, let's see the packs may be five grand a pack. Right. You can open up a pack for five grand and walk away with a quarter million dollars. Right. Well, that's, that's, I might go buy something like that. That's why I see an open a Pokemon car.

That's good. Yeah, well, maybe you do the Pokemon. I'll do the basketball or something. One thing I wanted to ask you was home run balls and things that like leave the field of play. Like, the member of beer that's tough to track down is so interesting to me, whether it's like, hey, Franco Harris's touchdown or this guy's home run ball. Like, then you got fans involved right away. And I know that's kind of part of the game.

But what's that whole process like, especially with home run balls. Because, you know, like at the minute the balls hit out, I'm sure there's something going on behind the scenes to get to that person. Yes. I mean, we are, you look at something like the most famous probably home run ball of all time. It's never been sold. Nobody has ever even, you know, one person claimed to have it, but it was, to me, it was a crock. And that was a shot heard around the world from 1951, you know, Bobby Thompson, you know, the Giants were independent, the Giants won the pennant off of Ralph Branca. But, you know, famous things like that, a home run ball. There are a lot of home run balls that MLB's there, and they watch it on the camera.

They see where, where went. If they can follow the chain in custody, they will let the person get an authenticate. And look at Derek Jeter's 3,000 hit for a home run. That ball is MLB authenticated and the fan gave it back to Derek Jeter. But, yeah, a lot of times it doesn't happen. In San Francisco especially, when Barry Bonds was playing, all those splash home runs that went into the bay. You know, and then people were in the boats and, you know, and then they were fishing them out of the nets.

You know, you need a video of that. You need the provenance of that. But it's never going to be MLB authenticated. they will never go for as much as something that is MLB authenticated would go for it. That is so interesting. If you hit it in McCovey, it might not be worth as much as if you hit it in the cheap seat. So that's crazy.

You hit it to the guy of the kayak and it's not going to pay off. I want to play a little game here. Is it out there is going to be my first line of questioning? And then I want you to put a value unofficially on a couple things that were kind of fun for me throughout sports history. First, is it out there? I guess the good one to start with is OJ Simpson's Heisman Trophy in USC Jersey. They're both out there. I happen to know who owns his Heisman Trophy because I know who bought it at the bankruptcy option.

Wow. It's a client of mine. Okay, okay. And his USC jerseys are out there as well. The USC jersey, if we can get its photo match, because I know a couple guys that would buy it could be $100,000. the Heisman trophy I'd say the floor is about 500

and the ceiling would be close to a million Jeez. Holy Fields ear chunk Um Wasn't that wasn't that sewn back on? Didn't somebody pick it up? Did they pick it up and give it back to them?

Okay, well if they, then it's out there. It's on Holyfield's ear. Okay, the first Super Bowl tape. You know, supposedly they had a, the networks might have kept a copy. of that thing. Oh, and it's never surfaced? Yeah. Oh, I would say that would be more

from a rights perspective than a collectible, from a collectible you could say 50 grand. Yeah, but it's more for rights. Yeah, for rights, it's got to be in the millions, right? Yeah. All right, so one thing we threw out here, and I don't know if this has been found, but Kirk Gibson's home run ball. We were just talking about

home runs, has not been found, supposedly. I do not, or there's no valid claim. I know obviously he's bad and his jersey have sold a couple times from that event, but I do not recall the home run ball ever being sold, so I'm going to assume you're right. Yeah. How about Jackie Robinson's first Dodgers jersey? Okay, so first of all, that would break the record for the most valuable item. If you were able to, you know, there has been a 41947 rookie jersey that has been sold, and it was photo match, and it came with a letter from Rachel Robinson from back in the day.

originally sold, I think, for $2 million, then sold for $3 million, and now it probably, in my mind, be worth at least $15 million. But if you had, I know nobody who supposedly has the very first jersey he wore on April 15th, 1947, the Ebbets Field. I do not know that that exists or anybody has it. But that, to me, would be the single most important item in baseball history and the most value. Is there an item out there? It may not be that valuable, but you're like, I'm dying to know what happened to that item.

I mean, maybe there's a crazy backstory. There's two. There's several of them. One, there are three people who claim to have the actual basketball that Will Chamberlain scored his hundredth point in. Yeah. And all three of them ever story, and I met with one of them. Um, but the coolest item that I would want to see in person would be, um, going, going, going way back. I'd like to see the signed confession of Joe Jackson,

the one that was in the trial for the White Sox and came missing from the trial, who was stolen from the Chicago Police Department, and enabled all of them to go free and innocent. Unreal. How about this is a little off the wall? Steve Bartman's headphones. What would Steve Bartman's headphones be worth?

I don't think that would be significant. Yeah. Because, you know, I don't think the Cubs fans would want to buy it. But now the monkeys off their back, I was thinking maybe it would jump in. I would say under, this is really low. Yeah. Under $1,500. Wow, I would pay more.

So if anybody has Steve Barvis, Steve, if you're listening, I would fucking, yeah, a couple grand. I don't want to negotiate against myself. T.O. Sharpie, the most famous one. With a letter from T.O. Yeah. I can see, I could see, I could see somebody. know, paying four or five grand for that. Okay, okay. So we already talked about the Wilts Chamberlain 100 point basketball. How about the mean Joe Green Coca-Cola can?

Oh, the actually, the can or the jersey would be valuable is the jersey. The jersey would be more valuable in the in the commercial that would go for a little bit. The jersey, here kid, he tossed in the jersey. That would be, that would be a nice piece. And let me give you one that will never happen, but he just passed away and Len Dawson's iconic photograph of him with a with a heater at halftime. 87 years ago. How about if they had found one of Lend Dawson's heaters? I would pay a lot of money for one of Lend Dawson's heater.

From the Super Bowl, the one, the halftime on the bench was from the Super Bowl? I mean, I would frame, I would shadow box that. I would pay 100 grand for that. Okay. Well, there you go. Somebody's got to find that for you. So that's what it's worth. Find, find the DM.

A. We were out. People collect that stuff. We were out with Mike Tyson one night and I had my daughter who's 22 and he put down a used joint.

And she picked it up and she saves it. She saved it. And he has it in a box and I guess she'll show it off to her friend that this is a used mic. How much does she want for it? I don't think Well, just ask her for me, will you?

And then the last question As we let Ken Golden go and you got to come back another time. This is so fun is how much, and I know it's not much, but I got the OG dog mask from our year. How much is the OG dog mask going for? A couple grand.

Okay. So this is a lesson in collectibles. If you personally, put that up at options in in 2018 and said, I'm going to auction this for charity, all the proceeds for charity, blah, blah, blah, with a letter that this is my mask I wore. I would put a low of 25,000, possibly 50,000 in that time. Okay.

Right now, you're right now your audience is much more limited. Yeah. Time kills. I'd say it's probably about five grand. The declining quality of the podcast. Just joking. Five grand though. That's still fucking good.

Okay. That's a good floor. We can keep it going. We can keep it going, man. Views keep going. And you know, like he said, things can change. Like, you know, with Pete Rose and all those guys. Maybe something good happens to us.

Yeah. Matt. Ken, will these guys get sick if they chew gum from 1988? I got some old sex from. I think they will. Yeah. Really? Really?

Who now knows what insects have crawled? Mike Rose has been in there for 40 years. You're right. Take it from Ken Gold, man. He's shoot some old gum. Ken, appreciate you, man. It's not like wrapped in a gum wrap where it's supposed to be safe. It's in a loose wax pack of cards.

You're right. We got to find out. Ken, I appreciate you, dude. Love the jersey. Love your work. Can't wait to have you back on again.

Sounds good, guys. Thank you. Enjoy being here. Thanks for the time. Ken. See you.