Sports Car Nation, the hobby is the people. Weekly news and interviews. It's
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[Music] Sports Car Nation. What is up everybody? Welcome to episode
357, aka the Magnum episode of Sports Card
Nation. Uh, as always, glad to be back. Happy Friday if you're listening to this
on release day. And, uh, we got a great guest today. Uh, Frank the Sports Card
CPA's got probably the greatest single Hall of Fame baseball collection
probably on the planet, or one of them. He's definitely in the running. Has over 300 of the 350
baseball hall of famers autographs and uh including many of the big ones. And
all the current uh uh anyone that's alive, he has all of those as well and
is only missing uh 50 more. And he's an accountant uh CPA who does a lot of work
in the sports card hobby. So, we're going to talk about his collection, how he decided to go for it, tackle it. Uh,
we're going to talk to him about uh some mistakes or or things you can do as a
hobbyist or a dealer who who files taxes as well. A lot of great info uh
jam-packed into the next two weeks of show with with Frank. So, uh had a blast
talking to him. Uh I think you'll enjoy some of the topics we cover. a little different than the norm, if you will,
which is to me always fun and always cool to do. Uh, as always, want to thank
our sponsors. In no particular order, Iron Sports Cards, uh, Rob, uh, doing
your bulk subs, PSA, SGC, uh, doing very well and, uh, one of the
best guys, uh, for that. And, uh, Sports Collectors Digest, uh, blessed to be
able to write for them. uh Jav Hotline, our every week uh Saturday morning live
show that appears on the four collectors network and Upper Deck who allows us to
review and and open some product and give away uh some stuff as well. So with
that out of the way, let's get the show underway.
I'm real excited to have this next gentleman on Sports Card Nation. I met him a few months back in Chicago at the
National and he gave me a business card and uh very interested to to talk about
him as a whole. He's a collector like most of us who are are listening to the show, but he's also uh a CPA who kind of
specializes on the sports card side of the house as well. So, I want to welcome
to the show Frank the Sports Card CPA. Welcome, Frank. Hey. Now, John, this is very exciting to
have me on. I've watched this podcast for years, so uh very excited to be actually invited to be on the podcast.
Thank you for having me. Well, I I appreciate Thank you for your time and coming on and uh you know, getting to
meet you obviously in Chicago. Uh like I've told you before recording, I'm a dealer, so you know, any type of and
we'll get into the the nuts and bolts of this, but you know, I don't think you know, if you're a dealer who who who
profits or makes money in the hobby, obviously we got to pay our sales taxes and that's not avoidable. But when it
comes to income taxes and other taxes, depending on obviously what state you live in, um I think it's, you know, the
more you know or the more you h have someone who can help you or do your taxes, uh I think the better off you
are. And it's just, you know, from being in like tax laws change, uh every year.
Um, and for the the the the lay person is not going to know uh all about that
where someone who's like yourself who's in that uh line of work is going to be right on on tap top of that stuff. So,
uh I don't think we talk about that segment enough. And and again, we'll get into it more uh here in a little bit.
But I want to start out with, you know, Frank the hobbyist, Frank the collector, you know, kind of where did for you when
did the hobby start as as a as a hobbyist? The hobby started for me personally in
1983. My father took me to a baseball card show featuring Mark the Bird Fid. And
yeah, I was six years old at the time. And I really didn't know who Mark Fid was, but he was, let's say, he was as popular as
Otanias in the Detroit when when I was a real young child. And so I got to meet
him. That's when I got my first of many, many baseball hall of fame autograph.
And for those of you that watch my channel, I used to be called Baseball Hall of Fame autographs. I recently did
a rebrand as a sports card CPA. But as you could see behind me, I love
collecting. I really don't sell. I just collect baseball hall of fame autographs with the impossible goal of getting
every single baseball. Uh let me let me piggyback off that. Alive and deceased or or
351 baseball hall of famers. Yes. Alive. It doesn't matter. I currently stand at
301. I need exactly 50 left. And they're all very very tough names. We're talking
five fig. Yeah. And and obviously that number goes up with each new induction class. You
you add those to the arsenal or to the collection. Correct. Yeah. What I mean what obviously you
said you're about 49 or 50 short of of completion. Um I mean what's what's the
big one that that will be the toughest of of those? Uh they're all tough in their own right, but what what one you
think's the the number one toughest? The number one. Again, a lot of these guys I probably your listeners have
never heard of. For example, there's someone named Frank Grant who's a turn of the league Negroly player. Uh rumor
is he was illiterate and there's not a single autograph known to exist. There's a lot of other guys especially
well that shouldn't that shouldn't count. Like I'm I'm not saying he should obviously he's in the Hall of Fame that
that counts and he was a heck of a player to but if he if there don't exist you it's not like you're missing if
something really doesn't exist you're not really missing. You know what I mean? It's like a set where the card wasn't produced. So, you're not
let's say it was produced but never released. So, maybe one will come out. But, uh I call I count them all the
same. Uh I count Babe Ruth the same weight as Harold Baines. Let's say if you're in the Hall of Fame, you're in
the Hall of Fame. I need your autograph whether it exists or not. Probably the most common household name of any
autograph I need that your listeners would have heard of is Christine Matthew. obviously uh 1936 inductee who
passed away about a couple years before that unfortunately because of God tuberculosis I know something to do with
chemical warfare and so he passed away very young again the hobby was in its infant and it just makes his autograph
very challenging to get and what I do is if you watch my channel I do an autograph analysis of every single
baseball hall of fame uh obviously we talk about Frank Grant I did a less than a minute video because no known examples
exist but uh like when I talked about Christy Matthew. There's just a so many forgeries out there. You really need to
be careful when you're going to buy it. And without going into details, I mean, I know a lot of TPAs, people that work
for the TPA, and they're all great people, but even they will tell you they make. So, if you're looking for autographs, it doesn't matter Hall of
Famer, not Hall of Famer, current, veteran, whatever, passed away long, do your research. I always say buy the
autograph, not buy this. Yeah. Great point by you too, Frank. Right. These are humans, right? Humans
make mistakes. That's correct. That's that's part of life. It can ha it can happen. But you you nailed it right on
the head, right? Especially with an autograph of significance of significant
value. You can't do too much research and investigate. You can only do uh too
little uh especially when making a a purchase. Correct. So, like uh I brought out a few
autographs and I've shown these before on my channel, but like one of the rarest one of the rarest I have and I
don't if you're listening, this is a Frank Chance autograph of Tinkers to Evers to Chance. There's probably 10
known autographs and this one's just a beauty because it's on his letterhead, Frank LC Chance Branch. If you go on the
PSA database, this is the single autograph that they refer to on the database. And like I said, I bought the
autograph. I didn't. There's a lot of cuts out there. I stopped buying cuts after I had a very bad experience.
Again, you can watch with one of these. I bought a cut autograph from a very reputable dealer. And unfortunately, it
was deemed not authentic. I don't want to say fake. It was deemed nonauthentic. And what the problem is, once an
autograph is deemed nonauthentic, it goes into their database as nonauthentic. You may not know this, but the TPA's do share their database. And
therefore, it would probably never be authentic even if it was real. So therefore, even though I have no plans
on selling that autograph, I couldn't get a grade in. Therefore, if my descendants ever wanted to sell it, it
was pretty much worthless. So, it was a very expensive lesson learned about cuts versus buying the provenence of the
autograph. We've heard, you know, recently, I'm sure you heard about the the big forgery scandal of course and in the air. Now,
I'm not going to give uh his name. He's he obviously committed suicide. I'm not
going to me, you know, and and obviously that's a big story and and it doesn't just hurt people who collect autographs.
I think it hurts the hobby in general. I've heard the FBI run estimates that
they believe 50% of autographs in the marketplace are nonauthentic. In other
words, half um I mean what again it's all speculation. Does does that sound
right to you, Frank? about half autographs are are are not legit or does that sound too high?
That's me personally. I think that sounds too high in the sense that if you
buy an autograph that has let's say a reput JSA, Beckett, and PSA, I would say over
90ome percent of those autographs are good. Uh again, I would not be buying an autograph today of a very high valued
player without one of those big searchs. if you don't know what you're buying. Uh I mean again, they've all made mistakes,
but if you go on eBay, I'm sure that 50% number is higher than normal, but as like one of the heads said, if it's too
good of a deal, I mean, if it's the price is too good, it's too good of a deal. Of course, the cliche is escaping
me right now. But yeah, probably that number is if it's too good to be true, it probably
is. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, John. So like uh anyways, getting back to that.
So yeah, if you look at Mickey Manel, probably on eBay right now, probably I would say maybe 50% are fake. But again,
over all those or nearly all those 50% that are fake are probably under $100.
So if you're paying under $100 for a Mickey Manel, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. So do your
research. I mean, Mickey Manel probably one of the most forged baseball players, at least of all times, in terms of
autographs. I did a video about it. It's gotten like close to 10,000 views now and you really there were let's say five
main forger around the 2000s with all operation bullpen and they're really
easy to the trained eye spot and fake and say this is no good and the TPA's again all know this none of these got
through third party I shouldn't say none very very yeah Mickey Mickey definitely is number one on the most uh fugazi autograph list
you got Jordan on the basketball side of the house um as well I Believe me, I I
have Mickey Man autos that are legitimate and certified. And I've I've had in my hand many of uh of of his that
I I know are just by looking at and I'm not even a certification guy, but I guess sometimes you can tell and like
you said, if if you're looking at a Mickey Manel auto and someone's just asking a hundred bucks, that's usually
just run. Just run. That's a pretty obvious uh signal that
uh that is not real. So correct. I mean the big forgery about a couple years ago was the Willie May say
hey holograms which a lot of TPA's unfortunately accepted the hologram. It
must be real. Again I don't want to name the name but a safety very similar to Barry Bonds. And I was very fortunate
there when Revel reached out to me because like I exposed it pretty early that these were bad autographs and what
to look for. But again, probably like I would say Willie Mays is the number one
autograph that has been passed by TPAs that are for if I had to take one to be careful it's going to be Willie Mays. So
and they all have the say hey hologram they all look very similar. So besides
that is that he passed away like I said last year so he's obviously had players have an influx when they pass away and
so that's again that's that's the exception not the norm. The TPAs are all good people. They're not trying to steal
your money. Yeah, that's a tough if you if you if you know about Willie May's autograph, that's a tough autograph to
to duplicate. Uh if you're a forger, you know, but again, correct. These these
unscrupulous people practice their craft repeatedly. And then you you know, then you got auto pen issues like it's not
just all necessarily handwritten things, you know. Uh in the 40s and 50s, you had
the clubhouse signatures where a bat boy or a club uh learned how to do players
on that uh team's uh signature to take the workload in the sense off of them.
And and and back then too was a little more innocent than it would be today because there there wasn't like a huge
marketplace uh like we know now. That was just hey kid, you know, sign these
for me so I can do some other stuff. But yeah, still not, you know, talk a little bit
about that, especially on the Hall of Fame stuff. I mean, the most famous one is the 1955 Dodgers that won the World Series. There
was a guy, a bat boy, clubhouse attendant. His nickname was the bro. He had like a unibro and he Duke Snider
said he could sign my name better than I can. And so I' I've actually seen him in person where the guys are like, I got
this baseball from the 1955 Dodgers. It's real. They had this great story how
it was passed down. I mean, autograph experts now can probably spot the
differences. There's certain things to look for, but again, that's probably when the secretarial really took effect.
They became really good. Prior to that, like Lou Garri and Babe Ruth, yes, they had secretarial signatures, but they
were not real close to what their actual signatures look like. Again, like 1955
is kind of the turning point where like, wow, he's been close. And going back to what you said with the recent autograph
scandal that broke without giving you information, the majority of the autographs were not forged as much as
they were auto pens. And they dropped a video on that. And there's certain things to look for even with an auto
pen. I mean, the autograph looks real in the sense that he forged like 100 Wayne Gretzky autographs and everyone looks
exactly identical. Exactly identical. Like Wayne Gretzky on a perfect day couldn't do that himself. So again this
is like with the autopen again bringing it from uh bringing that little forward again that started mostly with
politician in the 1970s 1984 then it's taken over now to sports stuff. I mean
we see that very commonly let's say sports signed books are being auto penned a lot and passed off as real and
the other thing you really problem now is a lot of these athletes they don't know how to sign their name so they make
lines and little drawings or just initials just initials
yeah like it would be like me just putting JN on a sticker or a piece of paper or the card itself it's just it's
a different generation you know yeah it's a different generation also A lot of these players, again, I don't
want to like segregate this, but a lot of them that come from the Dominican League in that area, they really never learn how to spell their names. They
they just learn baseball and that's all they really care about. So, uh making making a glove out of milk
cartons. Yeah, exactly. You know, so yeah, they weren't thinking about signing
autographs, trying to survive and enjoying a game that they love that if they were fortunate enough could provide
them a living uh eventually, which it did uh for some. Time for a quick break,
but we'll be right back. [Music] Iron Sports Cards is your number one
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PSA. Rob's got you covered.
Sports Card Nation has returned
for for you. I mean, you have a great collection. Obviously, you talked about it kind of started but with with Mark
Friedrich the bird. When did you real like when did you know like I want to
collect autographs and and then maybe twoprong question Frank when did that and then when did you say I'm going I'm
going for all the baseball hall of famers that ever are in So in 1993 I went to the nationals at
the Rosemont Convention Center. Not the Rosemont I'm sorry McCormack Place Convention Center downtown Chicago. you're probably familiar with it. Uh,
and they had a bunch of Hall of Famer and I couldn't I wasn't real rich as a
kid. I was middle class growing up. So, they weren't that expensive the autographs then like they are now. Uh,
so in 19 so I got as many autographs that I could. I don't have the baseball. They're behind me. But I got I filled
the baseball with like 20 Hall of Fame and I'm like this is really cool. And so my father and I started a tradition and
in 1994 we went to the George R. Brown Convention Center for the 94 National. And what's interesting about that, I
always talk about this, is Mickey Manel was there. It was his last show. Nobody knew it was going to be his last show.
Obviously, he just signed with Upper Deck. He was charging $80 an autograph. And now that's like a bargain,
obviously. But back then, $80 for an autograph. Insane. The next closest person was Carl Shrimsky. So, I remember
looking at his line. I have a picture somewhere. And there's nobody in line for Mantel because no one was gonna pay
$80. He's been do he a year ago he would do the show for $30. Of course he passed
away less than a year later and I made a vow to myself. Whenever I see someone's
baseball hall of famers I always love baseball I would get their autograph. So my initial goal was to get all the
living baseball hall of famers in person. Uh I have flown all over the country all the nationals getting them
in person. In 2001 I got Kirby Pucket and finished every living hall of fame.
And then like now what do I do? in about 200. This is when Operation Bullpen was
really coming to light. So, I'm kind of glad I didn't start until when I did. Then in 2007, I started making, let's
say, some real money, like adult money. And I said I I'm looking at it right now. I a Chief Bender autograph. He was
a pitcher for the ATH Philadelphia Athletics came for sale. And I'm like, I'm going to bid on it. And I bought it
and I said, you know what? I'm just going to go for them all. I'm going to go for them all. I know it's an impossible task. Uh, I've taken out
small business loans to get some autographs. I got some real toughies that way. Uh, fortunately the vintage
autograph market has like all like a rising tide rising tide raises all
ships. Like vintage sports cards, the autographs have gone up as well in value. So, uh, it may be my retirement.
I'm hopefully I won't need to sell them one day, but if I have to, they're all here. And I'm really proud of not only the autographs, but like the the medium
that's on. Like you see behind me over here is Roberto Clemente's signed tax return. I just did Bill McKenchney. It
was a really cool endorsement that appeared in a 1928 baseball uh magazine. So like everything behind me are
government postcards, checks, documents. I've been very careful since I learned a very expensive lesson to avoid cut
autograph. Yeah, that's that's awesome. uh awesome pieces uh for those looking on in in
video and and again having 300 of the 350 just tells you what kind of
collection that you have. Do you know anyone else like yourself that's attempting to do this? And and if you
do, do do like-minded folks are you like do you work together like hey I have an
extra one of these and you have an extra one of those or how does that work or not? I I know that works with cards. Is
it is it the short answer is yes. So I have a text chain with people you probably know
Bill the Hall of Fame collector uh Mike Moahan Jake Legends Ever Die and we're all in different points of our let's say
journey to finish them. Bill and myself are the closest and we kind of look at the major auction houses like Rea
Heritage this is coming out like this is my high bid. I'm like if you want it you got to bid X or Y. There's been other
time there's a a rare Negro League Hall of Famer named Alex Pompei. Uh his
autograph came about in a really small auction house and I know I had him. Bill
needed him and we're friends. So I called him. I said, "I can get it for such and such price. I'm not going to charge you anything extra." And I just
picked it up for him. I turned around and I sold it to him for cost and he looks out for me. So we really do look
out for each other because right now it's a small niche. I don't know anyone
personally that has a bigger Hall of Fame collection than me, but I'm sure they're out there because I see the
autographs now of players I need. Let's say Christy Matthews for example, and they're going for insane amount of
insane amounts of money. So, you know, some high dollar people out there spending that on autograph.
Yeah, no doubt. So, when you attend a national, is it twofold for you? In other words, what I mean by that, Frank,
is are obviously you might attend uh wait in line or or whatever you do for
some that are are are there or at this point all the living ones you have you
so it would only be maybe a a new inductee that you haven't got in person.
So you're more showcase shopping than waiting at online for someone in person.
Would that be accurate? Uh that's fairly accurate. So like when you get to my level and again someone
taught me this who had the biggest hall of fame auto monograph collection at one time is you start to speculate who's going to get it. You know what I'm
saying? So like this past national and I know he's only played one and a half years but Peter Crow Armstrong was
signing in person. I'm a real big in-person collector and so he was signing in person. So I did wait in
line. I got Petro Armstrong's autograph. I got Kyle Tucker's autograph because you don't know if they're ever going to
do a show again. If so, they're going to be much. Uh, PCA's autograph. I was so disappointed. If you're watching this,
Pete, I don't think you are. Please learn how to spell your name. Not just put PCA for the amount of money you charge. Uh, unfortunately, most of the
vintage autograph dealers are disappearing. Auction houses are just cleaning up. So, everyone that has a
collection of autographs, let's say that I need in my level, let's let's say besides the Roose, the Cobbs, or the
more rare baseball hall of famers, they're all going to auction these, John. I have to be honest, it's kind of disappointing because I'm sure you can
do this with baseball cards in the good old days, like the Frank Chance autograph cost me, I'm going to be honest, $12,000. So, I said to the
dealer that had it, I'm going to give you $1,000 a month. You hold the autograph, give you $1,000 a month.
It'll come back to you next year at the National. you're gonna hand me the autograph. Handshake deal. Both sides, I
think, ended up very happy. You can't do that anymore. Yeah, it's it's it's it's tough. Yeah, I
get it. And that's nice that even he was willing to to to do that uh and that
sort of thing. Um you you know it I like what you said too that like you'll get
you'll speculate, right, with a guy that's playing well and like they're they're not obviously in the Hall of
Fame yet. you're still playing, but like you know the trajectory kind of points to that and rather than wait and maybe
miss a boat that leaves port, you were sort sort of like locked in. I want to
ask you, have you ever bought a collection of autographs because you didn't need them necessarily all of
them, but you needed a few in there, but you whoever was selling wasn't piecing
it out. So, you had to buy the whole thing. And if you if the answer is yes to that, you know, I know you say you
don't sell them, but in that case, would you sell the things that you don't necessarily need from buying the
collection? And I guess if the answer is no, I guess the the second part of that would be would you ever consider that if
if like an opport arose like uh great question. The answer is no. I
just am so busy with let's say my real job. I don't have chance. I did one time. So, there's a Hall of Famer named
Stan Kovaleeski. Uh, he was a pitcher with the Indians and the rumor was he was illiterate. So, his family was
selling off his entire collection. And as I said, all you could find of his was index card. And so, in this collection
was his social security. I'm like, this is a cool piece. And I framed the social security card. I'm pointing to it back
here. And I said, I just want social security card. So, I spent a couple hundred dollars for the collection. And
in it turned out, was a government postcard as well that he wrote in 1917 to his then girlfriendwife.
And also in the collection was his, believe it or not, his uh wedding certificate. So I did turn around and sell the rest of the collection and just
kept the social security card. But that is the only time, John, that I have ever bought something just to piece one thing
out and then turn around and sell it. Uh yeah, there's been Go ahead. Yeah, I was I was just going
to say if if another opportunity where it was more like, hey, there's there's 12 autos in this collection, the the
owner of this collection does not want to break it apart. It's one price, takes it all, and you need, let's say, two or
three or two of them. Would you consider that or and again with the 50 that you
need, it's going to be one heck of a collection based, but would you consider some a deal like that where you you you
buy that for who knows how much, but you're keeping the two or the three that that you don't have and the other nine
or 10 you you're going to uh obviously sell and maybe even hopefully offset
some of your costs on the two or three you're you're potentially. Yeah. I mean, if there were one in there, I would do Sure. I'll tell you a
quick story. I hope I'm not losing your like deep deep hall of famers. No, that people love I I love this
stuff. People I'll tell you a story. So last year I think Rea sold a collection of Chicago
Cubs kind uh checks, cancelled checks. There had to be 300 checks in batch and
they sold five batches, let's say 200 checks. Now buried in these 200 checks
was a Hall of Famer named Tommy McCarthy. though there was only two known autographs at the time before this
collection these checks got released and so in these batches of collections and no one knew it the the what's it called
the auction houses didn't even go through the checks they said here's 300 checks from this time period and of course in two separate batches were of
the five were two Tommy McCarthy checks uh I know at least two one was sold for 30,000 and the other one is for sale
right now privately for about 35,000 again beyond my price range But like the
batch sold for $8,000 they total. So that would be a steal obviously if I
would have known about it. But like those that's what you have to do these days to find let's say the 50 or anything like that.
Yeah. That's that would be a nice haul to get it at least price. Yeah. Be a nice haul. But like you said when when they sell
lots like that are they are they showing each check individually or or not really. So you don't you really can't
tell? No, you couldn't tell. As soon as I saw the check for sale, I knew exactly where
it came from. So, I remember seeing the lot. But, I mean, I'm not a big gambler. I'm like accountant, which shortly, but
as a CPA, I don't want to spend $10,000 gamble cuz you would think, you would
have thought that a major auction house like Robert Edwards Auction would have gone through and look for big names.
Obviously, they didn't. So, lesson learned, but no, they did not show every single check.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's it's it's interesting when you see lots like that like if they still do them and and like
you said that the fact they don't take a look see if there are any diamonds in the rough so to so to speak but if you
purchase something like that and you hit that's a nice and my guess is the person that went
through them is a person like your average baseball fan they're looking for Babe Root IOB they're not looking for
Tommy McCarthy who's Tommy McCarthy so yeah yeah no it's a great point sometime
sometimes you Oh, it's it's worth a shot in the dark, as they say.
Awesome stuff from Frank right there. What incredible uh collection of
all time baseball hall of fame autographs. And uh I know we talked about that heavy today, which is just
great stuff. And I'm I won't apologize for that. part two, which is next uh next week, uh episode 358, we will dive
into more of the tax advice. So, if you're a buyer, seller, full-time,
part-time, weekend warrior, whatever, we're we're going to go over
some tax dos and don'ts and and tips and tricks, and I'm going to ask him some
questions that I've I've always wondered about uh as well. So, uh, ne if you
enjoyed this week's episode, uh, next week's episode is going to be right up your alley, uh, as well. So, uh, come
back and join us then, uh, and Frank will, uh, be back to tackle some of the accounting, uh, of the hobby, if you
will. So, we're going to get to our hobbies, the people announcer of the week, and wrap up this week's episode.
Time for our hobby is the people announcer of the week.
This is Andy Freriedman. Remember, the hobby is the people. If you'd like to be the hobby is the
people announcer of the week, do a WAV or MP3 file and send it to
sportscardationpc@gmail.com
