Alright. Welcome back to another episode of Passion to Profession brought to you by my good friends at eBay.

Excited for this conversation today. It's you know, it was earlier this year, we connected, and I felt like, this would be a good conversation to have on this podcast. I'm joined by Michael Osaki from Baseball in the Attic.

Michael is a longtime contributor in the hobby, longtime business owner. Today's conversation, we're gonna dig into his travel, maybe the state of appraisal in 2025, a lot of other topics.

We're recording this right before the national, so we might get into a little dialogue there. But without further ado, Michael, welcome back.

How are you? Thank you, Brett. I am outstanding. I'm excited to talk to you again, and this has been quite the year. We're five, five and a half years post the start of the pandemic, and the hobby is still extremely strong.

And that's important, and that's wonderful. It feels like it is maybe stronger than I don't wanna say ever, but it's stronger than it's been in a long time.

And just from me tracking, monthly sales data in card ladder, and you're just seeing strong performances, across a lot of different categories.

What I guess, maybe just like, we weren't planning to chat about this, but I you're in a lot of different areas talking to a lot of different people. What what do you attribute the performance to in 2025?

Well, what I can tell you is this. When I talk to clients or prospects or people in the hobby or even just people on the street that don't even collect. People seem to have a lot of money. They're spending it.

The stock market is at a record high. I know there are about three days there in early April, but the stock market sold off and there was some uncertainty. But that almost seems like it was five years ago. People are are confident.

They're happy. Even when you look at, sales data from American Express, Visa, Mastercard, their customers their CEOs are saying our customers are flushed with cash. We're happy. Our delinquencies are going down.

And that's really important because whether it's our market or the art market or watches or wine And I know a lot of the values are are down from the pandemic high of, let's say, 2021, but we need confidence.

We need to feel confident in order to open up our wallet, right, and spend. And what I'm seeing in our market is that prices are starting to plateau slash go up a little bit.

They're not really trending downward, generally speaking. Of course, the tier one items always go up in value just like your tier one pieces of art or tier one watches.

Right? Those things don't go down ever. So we're starting to see some green shoots, and we'll see what happens at the national.

Have some interesting conversations there with some people, but people are happy with how the economy is performing, and they're spending cash. Not a not a bad, market to be in.

I know I certainly, as a collector myself, have health you know, I've I felt like I've maybe have had to go back and pay a little more for what I wanted to, but, I I'm okay with it as as long as, you know, everyone around me is, enjoying it and having a good time.

I think we spoke last time, and one of the things one of my big takeaways was, how much travel you did, getting out in the field.

I think you mentioned, and correct me if I'm wrong, like, you were on the road, like, a hundred and twenty five plus days a year, which is wild. How have your travel routine, I I guess, evolved this year?

Have you been seeing more travel, more opportunities? Let's maybe start there. Yes. A lot more travel, this year as opposed to last year. And you're right. Last year was a lot of travel. And this year, we're essentially six months no.

I guess, seven months through the year because July is here. And it is busier than last year as far as me flying around the country. I would say that my schedule now is more streamlined than what it used to be and less chaotic.

I print out a schedule where I need to be from hour to hour, where I'm staying. My rental car is this. I hope to check into the hotel at 09:20.

We gotta wake up at whatever time. Before years ago, and it was probably my own problem. I everything was in my head, but I can't do that anymore because things have gotten so busy and my schedule is so tight.

Meaning, a lot of times when I travel, I'm seeing multiple people. So I'll be gone for three or four days at a time, and maybe I'm seeing two or three people in those three or four days.

And I may have dinner with a business associate or whatever. So everything is really, ironed out for me, and I really adhere to that itinerary.

A lot of times people will call me and because they find out that I'm in town, which years ago, that never happened, but I have to tell them, you know, I'll come back in whatever, you know, next year or in six months from now, and I can look at your collection.

But, because it's a disservice for me to if I schedule someone, I can't just try and fit in other people.

I'm sure there is, you know, every visit, every trip, always has something interesting. I I you know, and just getting to know you and talking, you've got stories for days, when it comes to individuals and collections and items itself.

I'm curious. Do you have any, any stories this year just in terms of your travel? Whether it's, like, visiting a small town, visiting a collector, that stand out to you as you kinda think about, all the crazy stuff you've seen in 2025?

Let me tell you one story from this year and then maybe two stories from prior years. The first story from this year is there is a family. Well, the husband collected over many years, and, unfortunately, he passed away.

And so the wife, was talking to her attorney because this collection that the husband had was massive. And so the attorney told her, you need to find a sports appraiser.

And so the wife and the daughter independently went on to Google or social media and tried to find a sports appraiser. And independently, they both found me, landed on me. They wanna hire me, which is great.

So I went in and saw their collection, which was quite massive. It was so many unopened boxes from going all sports going back to the mid nineties, and also complete sets, vintage, modern of everything, floor to ceiling in the basement.

Every single thing was, you couldn't even see the TV or the laundry room because everything was just covered. Towards the end of the appraisal, the wife came down to the basement to see me, to check-in, see if I needed anything.

And, it was like at that moment that her emotions she she was, like, talking to me but crying, and she was like, you know, Michael, my husband was such a great collector, and, you know, he would have no doubt loved to have have you here to see his collection when he's alive.

And, you know, we chose you because you're the best appraiser in the country, and he would have just loved right now to have you here reviewing his collection.

And, it was just an emotional moment for her, and she's like, can I hug you? And I said, of course. And so it was a whole and then I kinda got tteridactic because she was crying, and it was just like it was something.

I you know, it's been a long time since, like, there was a an emotional moment like that that was just so, I guess, impressive that I recall so so vividly. So that would be a story from 2025.

Two other quick stories from prior years. One was in Southern Illinois. Again, the husband passed away, but he owned a baseball card shop. And the family was fielding offers. People were trying to buy this baseball card shop.

And so I went in, and, it was a lot. It was everything that was in there. But one of the things that caught my eye when I first walked in in the display case was a 1973 Topps Mike Schmidt rookie card.

And the reason why that was so important to me is because I remember decades ago how I got my start when my grandfather got me a shoebox of old baseball cards, and that Mike Schmidt rookie card was inside of that shoebox.

And so even though I'm not a Phillies fan, that Mike Schmidt card really spoke to me, and that was one of the first cards that I saw at this grandiose baseball card shop.

And then thirdly, years and years ago, in Upstate New York, there aren't a ton of hotels, and this guy had a big collection.

And he invited me to sleep in his basement instead of getting a hotel room for a couple days? And maybe foolishly, I said yes. And and it was nice. I slept in his basement. There was a shower for me, my own bathroom.

The first night so okay. Slept down there. Great. Got a great night's sleep. My phone rings at 7AM or 07:15AM. It was early. I think I was in my head. I set my alarm for eight. And he goes, okay, Michael.

Are you ready? I'm coming down. I'm like, no. I haven't even showered. I'm still sleeping. He's like, what do you do? And he goes, if you if you're sleeping over, you better get up early. Let's get to work. And I was like, oh my gosh.

This guy, maybe I should have stayed at a hotel. So, Brett, I don't do that anymore. That's, yeah. I I think I would be the same way. Maybe, like, that first story about, the this year and the, husband who passed away.

I don't know. Like, what is that? Obviously, like, the emotion there, and the wife knew how much the collectibles meant to her husband that had passed away.

But, like, I don't know. That to me, as you're talking through it, it just shows, like, while she might not have been a collector, she saw how passionate her husband was.

And when you have these moments like this and they're tied to physical items and collectibles and things that we just talk about every day and we, you know, dig into the weeds, and it's normal to us.

But, like, what does that tell you, I guess, about, like, what you do and what you're looking at on a regular basis when you have a moment that's, like, is emotional like that?

It tells me that there is meaning to what I do. What I do is not transactional. It's not a commodity. They're you know, I'm invested in someone's lives or or vice versa.

And in fact, a lot of times, these clients become close friends of mine where they invite me over for Thanksgiving or for the holidays, or they're going on a vacation maybe close to where I'm gonna be and invite me on their boat or or whatever it is.

I'm now part of the family because I've helped them deal with this sizable collection, usually in terms of volume, but also value.

And they don't ever forget about it, and they're really, really appreciative of it. And that makes me feel good at the end of the day about my profession and what I do and how I help people.

I wanna dive into maybe kind of you know, we talk about the strength of the market right now and maybe just the state of appraisal in 2025. And I don't know, you know, what what you do in your role and, you see so much.

But I'm curious, like, have you seen this year specifically a shift in the type of appraisals you're being asked to do, or is it pretty much steady, the same type of stuff, same type of collections, year over year?

Yes. That's a great question. There has been a shift. It's a lot more institutional, organizations, IRS donation appraisals, a lot more formal.

Well, I only do formal appraisal reports, but it's a lot less individuals I'm dealing with as opposed to museums, institutions, which is good and bad.

Right? It's good because a lot of times these clients have wonderful collections. But I can I also can never forget about John Doe living in small town Kansas, and that's really those are the people who I really enjoy the most helping?

Someone who just happens to have a big collection that they don't know anything about.

There's no one locally that can help them or knows anything about the sports collectibles market or the values. And I come in and truly help them, and they're really grateful.

And that is, something I can never get away from. But this year, there is more, institutionalized appraisals, so so so to speak, that I'm doing. What what do you think what do you think the reason for that shift is?

Why more institutional type appraisals this year? Have have you been able to uncover that yet? Not really. Because the values, you know, have been escalating for many years now.

It's not just in 2025. I think that one of the things I'm seeing more of this year is theft. Theft and then, secondarily, damage claims. And so the insurance carriers will have to call me in or an attorney will call me in.

This is like the year of the theft, and I don't exactly know why. And I will say this. I think that some of these theft claims that I'm seeing are fraudulent or scammers, but that's not necessarily for me to decide.

My job is to, assign a value to a card or collection, and then the insurance carrier can decide how much to pay out. Just because I say collection is $200,000, I don't know what the insurance company will pay out.

And they have their own FBI investigators or whatever that determine if if a claim is legit or not. But I have seen some that are very suspicious. I will tell you that.

You mentioned theft, scams. I think I'd be remiss not to kinda get your feedback and opinion on just this massive autograph, scam, fallout. We're really just, like, in the middle of it now. We're awaiting new information.

We've got, you know, posts, and, you know, we we're trying to figure out what to believe, what not to believe. At the end of the day, like, there certainly, there was some, nefarious activity going on at what level.

I think we'll we're still trying to figure that out. But I don't know. When you see something like that and the impact that that can have on, you know it's a it's a ripple effect.

It goes all the way down to the end consumer. Like, how does something like that, in your opinion, like, doing what you do, maybe go undetected for as long as it did?

So there's still a lot of information and answers that we need. It's only, let's say, a couple weeks old. I think that the values have been grossly overstated and over exaggerated.

So I saw on the manifesto on Facebook before, the gentleman, took his own life that he said it was a $350,000,000 fraud, and I guess there was $700,000,000 in inventory at the warehouse that that the FBI was going to seize or did seize.

Those numbers are outlandish, and and the 700,000,000 is just double of the 350,000,000.

He said he was doing it for twenty years. If that okay. If that was the case, this fraud would have been exposed a very, very, very long time ago. I'm thinking maybe it's a $20.

25, maybe $30,000,000 fraud thing over twenty years, which if you extrapolate that on an annual basis, what is it? 1 and a half million over over twenty years, that's small potatoes in the autograph market.

That's nothing. That is not even a news thing at all. And so I know the FBI was involved, so it's gotta be somewhat big or large or an issue, but what he was doing is really small potatoes.

I think he wanted to go out being, like, the greatest forger scammer of all time in our hobby. And this is all gonna be water under the bridge in a couple months, and we can just move on.

So, I think last time we spoke, you had mentioned, like, the unfortunate part of your job is when you're, you know, having to go through items that you detect, whether it's a Babe Ruth autograph or, you know, another hall of famer that you have to tell the the family or the collector that this is an authentic.

And, you know, autographs, like, this is kinda part of it, and we're seeing kinda that storyline. And and, obviously, whether big or small, impacted some sort of of people.

So I guess, like, when you're in that situation, when you're having that rough conversation, like, you've done it enough. Like, I'm sure you're as professional as you can be about it.

But, like, what what are the types of things that you have to say? And maybe, like, how do you best, you know, educate to make to make sure the individual understands, like, where you're coming from based on your experience?

Well, firstly, I will say years ago, sometimes, if I had to deliver bad news, I would sleep on it.

I would, you know, go to bed, and I would say, oh, you know, how am I gonna nicely break this bad news to this loving family that something is no good or trimmed or it's a forgery.

Now it just happens every day that it's just natural, and I'm I no longer, lose sleep over it. I no longer stress about it, and I've gotten better. I don't think I'm perfect, but I've gotten better at delivering bad news.

And the fact of the matter is sometimes people lie to me, and so I don't feel bad delivering bad news. And I've gotten pretty good also at detecting liars and scammers too where they concoct the story about something they own.

Also, people have an inherent bias because they've owned something for decades or it was passed down to them that it must be worth a small fortune.

Sometimes that is the case, but a lot of times it's not. Just because you have a nineteen ninety four score, Craig Jeffries card, you know, it doesn't mean it's worth a lot of money even though it's old.

But you could have a Babe Ruth authentic signed baseball that's old and that that is worth a lot of money. So it just runs the gamut, but I I literally deliver bad news every single day.

Like and I'm glad you asked that question because a lot of times people may think what I do is so great, and I do love my job, of course, but I deliver some awful news to these people every single day.

So there's a lot of, collectors listening in who have just incredible collections and have maybe thought about going the appraisal route but haven't yet.

Maybe, you know, from all your years of experience, what what might surprise a collector the most about the appraisal process today that they probably aren't even thinking or don't know about? It's very time intensive.

Very, very time intensive. It's usually, the appraisals are are twofold. The first part is being on-site, doing the inspection, reviewing everything, looking at condition. Is something fake or not? Is this card trimmed or not?

Is this set complete, or is it missing the two key cards? That's the first part. And then the second part is when I have to write it up and assign values to each lot or category or individual item, that takes a long time.

You know, I can't just pull numbers out of thin air. There's research and data that goes into all this.

And, I think that's what people need to know. People think that this is very glamorous because I get to see these great collections. I get to meet these great people. And, yes, like, that is all true.

But what they don't see, as with many jobs, they don't see all the grunt work. Right? Like, you, Brett, have this wonderful successful podcast, but but what they don't understand is the research and the thought that goes behind this.

Right? Here we are interviewing and talking, but you have to think about great questions to ask me. Right? It can't just be like, how was the weather today in Chicago?

What was for breakfast? Right? People don't care about that. People need to you know? So you do a good job of asking good questions to all of your guests, so thank you for that.

Sure thing. Appreciate it. I I I try out here. I we we talk about you you shared the story about the the woman and her embracing you and hugging.

I I wanna maybe dig in a little further on any other types of situations and stories where where emotion is involved, whether positive or negative.

Collecting is emotional. Like, you know, we're building connection with, our favorite players and teams, and we're expressing that through these physical assets we have.

And, you know, in our minds, we have these predetermined, conditions and values that we have assigned to these items. And sometimes, you know, that's, like, the secondary benefit of it.

But in other times, some collectors, like, the value is what matters most. Any other emotional type of situations you've been in with collectors over the year when it comes to doing an appraisal or seeing some items?

Yeah. A few a few years back, I was appraising a collection. It was a strictly card collection, complete sets, fifties and sixties. It was wonderful. And the whole family was there, like, three generations.

There must have been fifteen, sixteen people there at the home, which was the first time I've ever, you know, had so many people. Like, they were so invested, emotionally, you know, into the collection.

They wanted to see what it was worth. But the big reason why they were there wasn't for the cards. It was 990. 9% cards, but then they had this one autograph. It was a a single sign Babe Ruth baseball.

And they were so invested, and they want to know the value because over many, many, many years at Christmas, the grandfather, who's no longer alive, would tell the story on how he, was at a Yankees game.

And after the game, he had a baseball, and he slid the baseball under the, I guess, fence or backstop, and the babe signed the baseball then slid it back under the fence.

And so this great story, and the grandfather went out, you know, this is what I wore this day, and he had his whole, you know, hat and whatever.

And it was a whole thing. The story took fifteen minutes, and every year, grandpa would tell the same story. And, so I took one look at the baseball, and I said, I don't know who signed this, but it was not Babe Ruth.

And there are, like, again, fifteen, sixteen people there, and I heard one guy in the back go, you're a liar. You know? It was just and then people started joining.

You don't know what you're talking about. And I said, okay. I said, let's calm down. I go, I understand. I understand the story grandpa told you, and this is my expert opinion, and you don't have to agree with it.

But here's the thing. Let's say I'm wrong that this Babe Ruth is is not real, and let's say you say it's real. What I am not wrong is the the Babe died in August '48. This ball did not exist in the forties.

This ball was, like, from the nineteen sixties or seventies, So that is indisputable. So that's how also we know that this Babe Ruth autograph is not authentic. And, like, the jaws, like, chop dropped on the floor.

They're like so I don't know what happened. Maybe grandpa did get that ball one day, but sold it a long time ago or lost it and and found this ball and scribbled something on there and told the story.

Wow. Incredible, stories and rough situations and maybe also rewarding situations, a combo. It's, every visit's probably, offering you a new surprise one way or the other.

I'm I'm a big fan of, just analyzing human beings. I have to and just the nature of work that I do. And I I'd be curious, like, what have you learned about human behavior through your job?

Well, so as a kid so I'm like a one trick pony. Right? Sports collectibles. But as a kid, I also wasn't involved in stocks and, you know, I I studied finance, and there's a lot of correlations.

And the human behavior in this hobby is super interesting because, let's say, a player scores 45 points in a basketball game, everybody goes to eBay and buys that card.

And then the next week, maybe the player gets two points in a game, or he breaks his leg, or he gets benched, or something bad happens, whatever.

And the values go way down. Right? Just like in the stock market, a company has great earnings report, and before the opening, the stock is up 15%.

And then right away, it jumps another five percent. So now it's up 20% from the prior day, and everyone starts buying, buying, buying that stock.

Well, guess what? That's the high. That's the tippy top of the market, and then it goes down. Everyone's like, what happened? It was good news. The CEO said great things.

The same thing here. A player scores 45 points and you go to eBay and buy it. Like, that's the hop. Like, that's the high. And so I think the great Wayne Gretzky said, right, you need to skate to where the puck is gonna be.

So too often, people in this market are reactionary, but they're not thinking long term. What's what are we doing here? We should be thinking we should be staying to where the puck is gonna be.

Yeah. I I that's something that I certainly can attest to, and I have done it myself, but I I think I love the analogy and, it's great observation. Wanna maybe dig into you as a business owner for all these years.

And, you know, there are a lot of people listening that either have their own business inside or outside of the hobby or aspiring to to build a business, maybe you're starting on a passion project.

Based on what you do, what does it take to make, to make running an appraisal business viable in this industry?

Just like any business, relationships are key, and you build them over many, many years, if not decades. Right? These things don't happen on day one. That's really important.

I will also say this, which is also probably true of most, professions or hobbies or industries, that sales and marketing are also very important because you can be the best CPA or attorney or whatever in in your state or city or the country.

But if nobody knows about you, you're gonna be penniless. And so when you first start out, you gotta figure it out.

You gotta put on your sales and marketing hat. And I think so I sit on the board of directors for ISA, International Society of Appraisers, and we see new appraisers coming in, and I get to meet some of them.

And it's wonderful that they have this great skill set and they're passionate for what they do or what they are appraising, but you also have to be networking, talking to key influencers or decision makers that can help you, that that can refer clients to you.

And so that's a big part of it. So relationships and then sales and marketing.

What do you think maybe some common misconceptions are about kinda making some, like, a side hustle, like, say, someone who's setting up at shows on the weekend and then go into their nine to five?

But it can be anything. Like, what are some common misconceptions about making side hustles full time jobs?

The big one is you're gonna be rich on day one. You're gonna be able to quit your day job. Like, everything is gonna be wonderful. That's not the case, and that's never been the case.

My recommendation, not just for someone in our in our space that wants to do something full time, is you should stick with your day job and then do your side hustle at nights and the weekends.

And then eventually, over years, grow it enough to, then determine if you should quit your day job.

So let's say you're doing your side hustle for two years, maybe three years with your full day job, but the income that you make on the side hustle isn't enough full time, but maybe it's a good part time income.

That's actually exciting to me because, because I would say this. Well, think about this. You're doing a good part time job. If you quit your day job, you're working fifty hours a week.

I bet now you can take those fifty hours and make your part time your your side hustle a great full time business. So always be thinking about that. Don't quit your day job so quick. I always think about, in just building business.

I think about, like, the foundational elements that are key and critical, but maybe don't get enough airtime. I think about, like, building trust. I think about integrity. I think about what you do and the role of integrity.

The work you're doing is tied to, you know, money, trust, family, legacy. Like, how do you keep, that top of mind, like, integrity top of mind in all the visits, all the conversations, all the appraisals that you're doing?

Integrity is everything. Right? Especially in this day and age with social media, I can be out of business in twenty four hours, Brett.

Right? Because people could just leave reviews or go on to Twitter or Instagram or whatever and say I did this, and that's horrible. So at the end of the day, it is all about integrity.

Now I will also say, besides integrity, and this kinda coincides, I guess, is so I am an independent sports appraiser, meaning I'm not affiliated with any auction house, and I also do not buy, I do not sell, and I do not trade.

And I think that's important as that relates to integrity. Because if I was related or if I was affiliated with an auction house, I would just say, oh, yeah.

You know, I'm gonna appraise it and then, send it to this auction house because they're paying me. Or if I was buying a collection, I would appraise it for a thousand bucks, but it's worth 50,000 and then buy it for a thousand.

Right? And I think those right there show my integrity. People tell me all the time, Michael, you could be making so much more money if you just buy these collections and then sell them.

So, yeah, but that's not what I wanna do, and I have integrity to my business. Right? And so that is really important. I love it. Maybe as we're rounding out this chat, I'd love to understand. You've seen, so many items.

Is there a specific grail that you have has always been kind of in your mind or you've heard about that you wanted to see in person, but you never? I guess, what is your golden goose? Let me give you two things, two examples.

One would be I'm a give you one vintage, one modern. So the modern one is the 1997 Michael Jordan precious Melogems green. Now I've seen it for sale at auction, I think, in 2019 and over every couple years, the red one will sell.

So that would be the modern one. I would just love to see it in the wild raw in someone's collection. They just have it, and I'm like, woah. Now the vintage example, we're also gonna keep it green.

The T206 tobacco card with the green portrait signed, a signed T206 Taika. That would be a sick nice, healthy six figure card. I've yet to see one. Hopefully, one day I do. What is it about those two examples for you?

Those are the cards. Like, what what obviously, like, anyone listening knows the significance of both of those, cards, but why do they matter so much to you? Well, first one, the Michael Jordan card, the PMG green.

So I'm a Chicago guy. I, you know, I was here in Chicago in the nineties when they were winning all these championships. And so for me and MJ has a lot of great cards, a lot of autograph cards for sure.

That is, like, in my opinion, his best card, that PMG. So me being a Bulls fan, a Michael Jordan fan, I mean, there was one year I went to his house for Halloween and got candy.

And so, like, that would be, for me, to get that car or see that card, excuse me, appraise that card, would just be phenomenal. The Ty Cobb card, I've seen a lot of Ty Cobb t two six tobacco cards that are raw.

Some of them get graded, some of them don't. But have it autographed? Like, you just don't see a, you just don't see a lot of t two zero six tobacco cards signed at all.

But to have Ty Cobb, he's got four cards in that set, and I just love the green portrait. My guess is there might be one or two of them out there.

I don't know if they're in private collections or maybe someone doesn't even know they have it. A lot you know, don't forget, a lot of these collections I see are like raw, untouched collections.

So someone may have this in their attic or basement or storage unit right now as we're talking and don't and they don't even know about it. Well, I hope, you can check those off the list at some point soon, Michael.

I think when people hear, appraiser and maybe think about their own collection, I probably a lot of thoughts run through their head like, oh, I should be doing some things I'm not doing right now to protect my collection.

What's one piece of advice you'd give anyone just in terms of, like, preservation? Like, something that they easy that they could be doing tomorrow that they're likely not doing today or yeah.

The first thing is insurance. Ensure the collection. It's amazing. Every national, I talk to people. People will just walk by my booth, and sometimes I'll just ask them, you know, is this collection insured? Have you ever had insurance?

And they look at me like I'm crazy. And these people are holding 6 figures, sometimes even more, in their Zion shoebox. Right? And nothing's being insured. That's easy. And, also, insurance is pretty affordable.

A lot of times people might think, oh, you know, it's gonna be so expensive. Like, that's not the case. The second thing I would say in terms of storage and preservation, it would be wonderful to let's say you have a bunch of raw cards.

To store them in, like, an archival acid free box, to protect it, obviously, in a dry environment, That's important.

Too often, people just have their stuff on the mantle or on the kitchen table. These are easy fixes, and they seem like it's common sense, but people don't take steps.

Don't forget. We're talking about trading cards. They're so easy for the electrician or plumber just to take one off the kitchen table and put it in his or her pocket. And it's easy to put them in a safe or somewhere that's protected.

I see too often people just have stuff out in the open. It's just never a good idea. Or, like, in the basement, on the direct floor. You know, it's in, like, a Home Depot box, but, like, it's on the floor. It should be elevated.

So those are some tips. As we round out this chat, curious if you have any plans for the rest of this year that really excite you, how you're thinking about kinda pushing your business forward, in the back half of the year.

I'm gonna try and be more consistent with so I recently started a YouTube channel, and then, like you, I have a podcast.

I've been interviewing some people. One day, we'll have to get you on there. And I think that's been wonderful, but, also, what I would like to do is film some of the appraisals I'm doing.

So I'm in Upstate New York or Atlanta, Georgia, and film what I'm doing, what I'm seeing, talk about the collection, maybe even interview the owners of the collection, why they call me in, what's the provenance, what's their favorite item here.

And I think that would really be super interesting to show and have detailed.

So, hopefully, we'll get some owners to agree to have a hopefully, they'll agree to have it being filmed, and then we can share it on YouTube. That's something I certainly would watch. Michael, baseball in the attic.

Always good catching up. Appreciate your time and all the stories. Looking forward to connecting with you, hopefully, when I'm in your hometown here, in the next week or so. Thanks, Brett. Look forward to it.