How Was the First Episode of All-Star Dealers?

Whenever our hobby is a focal point for mainstream media, I pay attention. How non-collectors or casual ones perceive our hobby can greatly influence its future viability. So it was with much excitement, and some trepidation, that I watched the series premiere of the new reality show, All-Star Dealers. Airing on the Discovery Channel, the program explores the world of sports collectibles, including autographs and game-used items.

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Quiz Time: Baseball Hall of Fame Style

Good stuff as usual from one of my favorite websites, Mental Floss. No one has ever been elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously, and as crazy as that is to believe, 27 players have received 90% or more. How many can you name? Leave your total in the comments section. Have fun.

Take the quiz now.

Poll: The Hobby on TV

I Still Can't Get Over This . . .

Chris Harris from Stale Gum brought this to collector's attention this week and we railed about it on the show Wednesday but it still irks me and apparently I haven't gotten it out of my system. I said on air that I could have lived with it as a gimmick, complimenting the gimmick of the card itself, had it been notated in small print or something that this wasn't an authentic signature and grading it was just a fun lark.

Autograph authentication and grading has it's detractors and this type of stunt doesn't help matters. Author of Autograph Hell, Charles Irion, has a great saying, "It doesn't have to be real, it just has to be authentic."

That said, how in good conscience could the powers that be at the #1 authority, grade this "autograph" at all, let alone give it a "10". What a joke. It's bad enough that Beckett will grade autographs without having them authenticated first. 

Applying a grade to the autograph, in a sense, implies defacto authentication and is a very misleading business practice and less than ethical in my opinion. Why? Because the practice of autograph grading without authentication can create unnecessary confusion and taking money knowing this to be the case is just that, a money grab with no one's best interest in mind but their own.

So, what do YOU think?

New Sports Collectibles TV Show to Debut on Discovery

Sports fans and collectors will have a new TV show to watch starting this month on the Discovery Channel. As detailed by SCD in this post, the show will air January 24th, at 8pm EST. Below are two of the trailers.