Stale Gum on Hobby News Daily

A couple of months ago, I ran into my friend and fellow Hobby Hotline co-host Danny Black, who was starting a new Hobby news website.  I asked him if he was interested in a bitter and cantankerous former baseball card blogger who could contribute one or two 800-1000 word screeds a month.

Surprisingly, he said yes.   

Anyway, my first article for Hobby News Daily is up, (I didn't come up with the headline.)  and if you were familiar with what Stale Gum was in the pre-blog years (all six of you), you'll recognize the "Chris' Notes" style format immediately.  Believe it or not, I actually praise Topps, before shitting all over them for the steaming pile that is 2022 Topps Chrome Sonic.

And after you're finished reading my first article, check out the rest of what's up on HND.  Technically, we're in "soft launch" mode for the rest of March, but there's some good stuff up there already from voices you may or may not be familiar with.

Official Statement on the Future of Stale Gum and Other Concerns

... stay tuned.

A Few Thoughts on Fanatics Acquiring the MLB/MLBPA LIcense.

By now, unless you've been living under a rock, the biggest news story in the century plus history of sports cards broke last week.  Major League Baseball and its Players Association have granted their exclusive trading card licenses to a new company to be formed by the sports licensing and e-commerce juggernaut Fanatics, Inc.  The MLBPA will have equity in this new scheme, along with MLB, which previously (along with the NFL) invested in Fanatics years ago.  As I write this, Fanatics has just acquired the exclusive NBA and NBPA licenses, and as with the baseball deal, also includes equity for the league and PA.  It is expected, sometime shortly, that the NFL and the NFLPA will follow suit.

The MLBPA's current Group Licensing Agreement with Panini America expires at the end of 2023, while MLB's with Topps is through 2025.  Meaning, for the next few years anyway, Panini will continue to produce partially-licensed baseball cards, as they have since 2011, while Topps will continue to print fully licensed baseball cards until at least December 31st, 2023.  

As for 2024 and 2025, Topps has always operated differently when it comes to player acquisition.  Because they predated that establishment of the MLBPA, they've always been exempt from their Group Licensing Agreement -- a blanket agreement that gives access to all players currently on a 40-man Major League roster, who are also PA members.  By signing players to individual contracts (so-called "steak dinner checks"), this gave Topps a competitive advantage over their competition by allowing them to produce the first MLB-licensed trading cards (and therefore Beckett Definition "Rookie Cards") of dozens of Minor League prospects -- a loophole they exploited to great effect with their Bowman brand in the mid-90s and early-2000s, until the establishment of the current Rookie Card rules in 2006.  They have missed a few players. (Alex Rodriguez did not appear on a Topps card until 1998.  And in recent years Matt Wieters, Ichiro, and Madison Bumgarner have let their Topps contracts expire.)  It is currently unclear if Topps will still be allowed to sign MLBPA members to Steak Dinner Checks, and include big leaguers in what will still be MLB-licensed products for 2024 and 2025.

I'll get to what this means later, but as of now, Panini America will be out of the licensed baseball card business on December 31st, 2023.  The next day, Fanatics will assume Panini's MLBPA license and produce their first partially-licensed baseball cards in 2024.  Topps will continue to make fully licensed baseball cards for 2022 and 2023.  For 2024 and 2025, Topps may or may not be allowed to continue printing fully-licensed baseball cards, but they'll still have the MLB license.  On January 1st, 2026, Fanatics will acquire Topps' MLB license and will be the exclusive licensor from then on.

Recent Appearances on Hobby Hotline.

Over the past few months I've made a few more appearances on the Hobby Hotline. (I usually make an appearance every three or four weeks) We're on every Saturday morning at 11:00am Eastern, 10:00am Central (11:30 in Newfoundland).  Just search for Hobby Hotline on YouTube or Facebook Watch -- or if you're on the go, the audio version is usually available a day or two later on most podcasting platforms.

From December 5th ...

The January 9th edition ...

From Jan. 23rd, here I am with Rich Klein!

And from the Feb 6th edition, Dr. Jim Beckett!

Stale Gum on The Hobby Hotline Episode #41.

Once again, this past Saturday I co-hosted The Hobby Hotline. Check it out.

Stale Gum on The Hobby Hotline Episode #38

This past Saturday, I made an appearance on The Hobby Hotline. We discussed Upper Deck's return to golf cards. The entry of a new grading company. And a report on my visit to this past weekend's CSA cardshow in Chantilly, VA.

 

Stale Gum on the About The Cards Podcast

This week I appeared as a guest on the About The Cards Podcast.  Give it a listen, and thanks to Ben,  Stephan, and Tim for having me on.

 

No, Your Stash of 1986-87 Fleer Basketball Waxboxes are NOT Worth More than Microsoft Stock.

So there's this meme that's been circulating on the card-Twittersphere the last few days that I just have to respond to.  You've probably seen it, too.  It looks like this ...

The claim is, if you purchased and squirreled away $1000 worth of 1986-87 Fleer Basketball waxboxes (you know, the one with the Michael Jordan RC) at the time of its initial release, it would be worth almost four times more than if you had taken that same $1000 and bought shares of Microsoft on the date of it's initial public offering on March 13th, 1986.  The cards are (allegedly) worth $8.5 million vs. the stock which is worth around $2.25 million.

Now, if I were a little less sophisticated in the ways and means of The Hobby, this might make me consider taking that $1200 in Trump Bux most of us are about to receive and invest it in basketball cards -- the kind of cards, not coincidentally, some of the propagators of this meme just happen to have for sale. (Visa/MasterCard/PayPal accepted!)

This meme is false, dangerous, and not in the best interests of The Hobby.




Where to begin?

First, let's compare and contrast these two investments.  Stock is, as they say, a liquid asset.  If you had $2.25mm, if you had $1200, heck, if you had $1.49 burning a hole in your pocket right this second, you can buy shares in Microsoft.  But because there's so much $MSFT on the market, your individual purchase really won't affect the stock's price one way of the other -- maybe a few pennies here or there if your order was large enough.  Microsoft stock is there, it's available, and you can buy it right now if you so pleased.

You can not say the same about unopened 1986-87 Fleer Basketball (henceforth abbreviated as "86-87F BK") boxes.

$85,000 for a full, certified, unsearched, box of 86-87F BK is a probably a fair price in 2020  The last documented sale of a 86-87F BK box I could find was $75,000 during the 2017 National.  But just because you bought 100 boxes of the stuff at $10/box 34 years ago, that does not mean you can easily convert that into $8.5mm cash.  That is because Hobby wax (and not just 86-87F BK wax, but any and all wax) is not as liquid as Microsoft stock.

(Before I continue, I have a quibble with how the meme authors calculated the MSRP of 86-87F BK boxes.  All of the packs discovered in the "TG&Y Find" were stamped with a $0.40 price tag.  Since brick-and-mortar Hobby stores and weekly cardshows -- much less internet sales -- weren't as prevalent in 1986 as they would be just a few years later, let's assume that the vast majority of 86-87F BK was sold at mass-market retail outlets like TG&Y who charged the "sticker price" of $0.40/pack.  Since you're buying retail, let's also assume that you live in a state that charges a sales tax and for ease of calculation let's make that tax 5%, YSMV.  This works out to a retail price of $0.42 per pack.

That meant that, in 1986, if you wanted to buy a full 36-pack box, you're paying $15.12/box, and that your $1000 bankroll would have only bought 66 boxes.  At a current market price of $85,000 each, those 66 boxes would have a value of only $5.6mm  For purposes of this article, however, I will use the $10/box price and $85,000/box values cited in the meme.)

Unlike Microsoft stock, Raymond James, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs are not going to buy your 86-87F BK packs.  Not every Hobby dealer has the available cash to buy an $85,000 box of cards.  Not every Hobby dealer who has $85,000 cash on-hand would be interested on a box of cards.  And not every card collector collects basketball cards.  So the market in potential buyers for an $85,000 box is limited.  86-87F BK boxes are not as liquid as Microsoft stock.

You can probably count on one hand (and have a few digits left over) the number of 86-87F BK waxboxes that are available for purchase at any one time.  And it is this unavailability, and not necessarily the scarcity (and don't get me wrong, these boxes are scarce), that makes 86-87F BK boxes so valuable.

If you were to unload 100 shares of Microsoft stock, it's not enough to move the market.  If you found 100 sealed waxboxes of 86-87F BK in you're late Uncle Larry's storage container, congratulations! Unfortunately, you've just increased the available supply by a factor of five, ten, even twentyfold, should you decide to dump them all.  Sorry, but you're not getting $8.5mm for Uncle Larry's stash.  Not even close.

(Hypothetically speaking, if 100, or even 66, 86-87F BK boxes were to come on the market in one fell swoop, I think fair price would be in the $20,000 to $25,000 range, making those boxes worth ... around the value of $1000 worth of Microsoft stock at the time of its I.P.O.)

The Stale Gum Podcast: Episode #2

Here it is, episode #2 of The Stale Gum Podcast!

Where I was...

NOTE: I posted this on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I will continue to post this each September 11th.


Here's a story that, outside of immediate friends and family, I've never shared with anyone before. Indulge me for a moment, as it is, somewhat, card related.

After weeks and weeks of endless "phone tag," a date and time had been set. At 1:30 PM that afternoon, Lloyd Pawlak (the guy whose facsimile signature is on the reverse side on all of your Fleer autogamers) and Jim Stefano would be interviewing me for a potential opening with Fleer Trading Cards.

This was the opportunity I've been waiting for my whole life. I mean, me, the ultimate card geek, was about to interview for a card geek's ultimate "dream job." Not only that, but their headquarters were only a short twenty minute ride up I-295!

As the days slowly ticked away, I planned out everything I would do that day right down to the millisecond. First, I was going to get up bright-and-early (well, 6:30 AM anyway), and call my boss with some BS "I'm sick" excuse. Next, I was going to hit the Wawa for my daily cup of joe and a doughnut. Finally, I would pick up my "interview suit" from the dry cleaners.

I was so amped with excitement, that I was able to accomplish all of these items by 8:15 AM. Still, I had five hours to kill until the interview. What to do?

At around 8:30 AM, on a total whim, I decided to "preemptively celebrate" my all-but-assured future sports collectibles career, by treating myself to breakfast. But not just any breakfast, but breakfast at the greatest greasy-spoon in the whole world: the Waffle House in Elkton, Maryland. (Yes, we have Waffle Houses up North now, and from time-to-time, when I need my fix; I make the pilgrimage down I-95 to Elkton.)

I think it was around the time I was on the down slope of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, approaching the $3 toll, when Ba-Ba-Booey interrupted Howard with news that an airplane had just flown into the World Trade Center.

It was all an accident. No big deal, right?

I think it was around the time I was finishing off my waffle and about to tear into a ham-and-cheese omelet plate, that the Waffle House's manager informed his staff, and the half-dozen-or-so customers, that the other WTC tower and The Pentagon had been flown into as well.

It was at that moment it all started to sink in. These were no accidents, or isolated incidents. These weren't just merely acts of "terrorism," whatever that word meant on September 10th. This was an act of war against the United States of America. For the first time in my life, after hearing twenty-seven years worth of stories about Pearl Harbor, I now knew exactly what my grandparents felt on December 7th, 1941.

While I continued to sip on my half-full and quickly becoming half-empty coffee mug, contemplating what was happening a hundred or so miles to the immediate Northeast and Southwest of Elkton, it occurred to me. How the hell was I going to get home? I still had to cross over that bridge. If those bastards -- keep in mind we still didn't know al-Qaida was responsible, or if there were any other "flying bombs" still left in the sky -- targeted the Twin Towers and The Pentagon; then the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the keystone of the Washington-to-New York transportation corridor, might be the next logical target! What was I to do?

After a few moments of contemplation and reflection, I slammed down my coffee mug, left a $20 bill underneath my half-eaten omelet platter, and high-tailed it back to South Jersey as fast as my '91 Mercury Capri could take me. I had to get home before they closed that bridge. Or worse.

I think it was around the time I arrived back home and turned on Channel 6, came the news that a fourth plane had crashed in some place in Pennsylvania none of us had ever heard of before. And then the first of the Twin Towers collapsed. And then the other. The look on Marc Howard's face after seeing the WTC towers vanish in front of all our eyes, is an image that will be burned in my memory forever.

My mother, as well as the rest of the Eastern Time Zone's labor force, was let out of work early, arriving home at around Noon. I immediately gave her the biggest hug a son could possibly have given to his mother. Her immediate concern was that the Air Force might recall me back to active duty and send her oldest son off to war. (I left in '99, but the USAF had until October of '02 to recall me. I never got the call, but if Uncle Sam needed me, He knew where to find me.) I had never seen my mother acting this way before. I can't think of the right word to say it. I wouldn't call it hysterical, but not quite despondent either. But as we embraced, I just kept whispering to her, "It's going to be all right. We're Americans. They're never going to get us here. It's all going to be all right."

At around 1:15 PM -- minutes before I was scheduled to have my dream job interview -- I called Jim Stefano to cancel. I got his voice mail, which leads me to believe that Fleer closed shop early as well. A few days later, I attempted to go to what was being called "Ground Zero" to pay my respects, but got no farther than Jersey City as the Holland and Lincoln tunnels were closed. I rescheduled my Fleer interview for the next week, and wound up not getting my "dream job" after all. But that story is for another time.

Hard to believe that it's been five years, eh? I invite you to share your 9/11 stories in the comments section.