[QUOTE=MiamiMarlinsFan;19796884]Their target audience, Peli-Bois and breakers, wants money. They get their money from end users like me: people who want physical cards. So it’s really hard for me to see digital cards ever become a major thing, and it’s impossible for me to see it ever over taking physical cards. But maybe that’s just my inner cranky old man showing.[/QUOTE]

Inner cranky old men like to hold and feel cards, degenerate gamblers can’t wait for the money to come soon enough!

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796820]The fact that Ken Goldin wasn't even able to get in touch with the owner of the card supports the idea that something scandalous could be going on with the Skenes card.[/QUOTE]

Does it though? Isn't the most likely explanation that Topps had a nearly two week window to negotiate the consignment with the family before Ken even knew about the card, and the family said yes before Ken's video was even made? Any good salesman could wrap that up with a bow on top before any competing auction house could even get a crack.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796835]It's impossible to put a percentage on the liklihood of something that's never publicly been known to have happened before. This is uncharted territory. [/QUOTE]

Wouldn't this also be a valid reason for people not to go into a 58-page debate over whether this is a scandal? "Never publicly known to have happened before", but there are more people in this thread who think it DID happen this time than those who don't.

[QUOTE=auctionjmm;19796897]Does it though? Isn't the most likely explanation that Topps had a nearly two week window to negotiate the consignment with the family before Ken even knew about the card, and the family said yes before Ken's video was even made? Any good salesman could wrap that up with a bow on top before any competing auction house could even get a crack.[/QUOTE]

So you're saying the family let Fanatics convince them to let them auction the card off before doing the most basic due diligence by contacting Goldin? The sales data are clear, Goldin sells the most super high-end modern trading cards -- Fanatics is at best a far second.

[QUOTE=auctionjmm;19796897]Wouldn't this also be a valid reason for people not to go into a 58-page debate over whether this is a scandal? "Never publicly known to have happened before", but there are more people in this thread who think it DID happen this time than those who don't.[/QUOTE]

The main reasons why there have been so much speculation and conspiracy theories on what happened with the Skenes card is:

1.) There have been no details publicly released on where the card was obtained from. The owner and/or Fanatics is being secretive about it. Yet, many personal details were released by Fanatics about the owner and their family.

2.) The facts about the Skenes Debut Patch card have not precluded the possibility of multiple conspiracy theories being true. Without more verifiable information coming to light, there is no way to disprove many of the theories. The secrecy and lack of details involving the card is creating an environment where alternative narratives about the card are cropping up and being disseminated on the internet.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796929]So you're saying the family let Fanatics convince them to let them auction the card off before doing the most basic due diligence by contacting Goldin? The sales data are clear, Goldin sells the most super high-end modern trading cards -- Fanatics is at best a far second.



The main reasons why there have been so much speculation and conspiracy theories on what happened with the Skenes card is:

1.) There have been no details publicly released on where the card was obtained from. The owner and/or Fanatics is being secretive about it. Yet, many personal details were released by Fanatics about the owner and their family.

2.) The facts about the Skenes Debut Patch card have not precluded the possibility of multiple conspiracy theories being true. Without more verifiable information coming to light, there is no way to disprove many of the theories. The secrecy and lack of details involving the card is creating an environment where alternative narratives about the card are cropping up and being disseminated on the internet.[/QUOTE]

Eh I need to stop with this thread. Every time I wander in here I think there must be something interesting happening with this story, but it's always speculation and people who seem desperate for drama.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796929]So you're saying the family let Fanatics convince them to let them auction the card off before doing the most basic due diligence by contacting Goldin? The sales data are clear, Goldin sells the most super high-end modern trading cards -- Fanatics is at best a far second.[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is what I'm saying. A salesman's job is to get the deal done. You walk into a car dealership to test drive a new car, their job is to sell you that car before you go to the next dealership to try option 2. Some people are very diligent and will visit a half dozen dealerships before making a decision. Some will buy the first car they test drive. This shouldn't surprise anyone. It's not abnormal. It happens in every walk of life.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796929]The main reasons why there have been so much speculation and conspiracy theories on what happened with the Skenes card is:

1.) There have been no details publicly released on where the card was obtained from. The owner and/or Fanatics is being secretive about it. Yet, many personal details were released by Fanatics about the owner and their family.

2.) The facts about the Skenes Debut Patch card have not precluded the possibility of multiple conspiracy theories being true. Without more verifiable information coming to light, there is no way to disprove many of the theories. The secrecy and lack of details involving the card is creating an environment where alternative narratives about the card are cropping up and being disseminated on the internet.[/QUOTE]

1.) Personal details are not really personal in the absence of an identity. Entire books have been written by anonymous authors about real life events that happened to them. The anonymity in itself takes the personal touch out of it. You can tell their entire story and at best we've narrowed it down to one of 200,000 households that were evacuated. The story is personal only to the one telling it. To everyone else, it's Family A from LA.

2.) This is true of most conspiracy theories. It's always the unanswered questions that lead to suspicion. Jesus, JFK, The Moon Landing, 9/11, Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon, Osama Bin Laden, Covid, Trump Assassination attempts...that's just scratching the surface. There will always be holes and there will always be people who look at those holes with suspicion.

We will never know everything about everything. And guess what? Even if Topps did release the entire story and the family went on ESPN and told their story, and the shop owner joined them and promoted his shop...there would STILL be people who wondered if it was all a ruse to sell boxes while the owner knew all along which box it was in and saved it for a kid to make the story feel good.

All of the above is also the reason this thread may never end. It's truly a bunch of people sharing "what if" scenarios. Some are genuinely curious, some have a vendetta against Topps and wish to speak it into existence, some are trolling, some are sheep. One thing we ALL have in common is none of us know the entire story from start to finish and who the players are. And we may never.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796929]So you're saying the family let Fanatics convince them to let them auction the card off before doing the most basic due diligence by contacting Goldin? The sales data are clear, Goldin sells the most super high-end modern trading cards -- Fanatics is at best a far second.



The main reasons why there have been so much speculation and conspiracy theories on what happened with the Skenes card is:

1.) There have been no details publicly released on where the card was obtained from. The owner and/or Fanatics is being secretive about it. Yet, many personal details were released by Fanatics about the owner and their family.

2.) The facts about the Skenes Debut Patch card have not precluded the possibility of multiple conspiracy theories being true. Without more verifiable information coming to light, there is no way to disprove many of the theories. The secrecy and lack of details involving the card is creating an environment where alternative narratives about the card are cropping up and being disseminated on the internet.[/QUOTE]

And there have been plenty of people who hit high end cards that choose not to send to Goldin.

Here is an idea - take a break with the conspiracy theories, and let things play out.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796929]So you're saying the family let Fanatics convince them to let them auction the card off before doing the most basic due diligence by contacting Goldin? The sales data are clear, Goldin sells the most super high-end modern trading cards -- Fanatics is at best a far second.


1.) There have been no details publicly released on where the card was obtained from. The owner and/or Fanatics is being secretive about it. Yet, many personal details were released by Fanatics about the owner and their family.

[/QUOTE]

Yes, it's very possible that they had no interest in contacting Goldin. Maybe he's like so many people here and think Goldin is terrible and apparently bad for the hobby (despite the fact that he continually gets more money for people cosigning cards than anyone else). Some people here made it pretty obvious that they be fine if Topps truly did backdoor the card if it meant Goldin didn't get a chance to sell it.

Why aren't you in one of the multiple Ohtani threads spewing your conspiracy theories? The 1/1 logo man was hit. There's zero information about the person who hit the card or how they obtained the card. Why no shout out to where they bought the card. There must be something shady going on, right? Also, they went with Heritage Auctions? Since all they care about is the money, why didn't they use Goldin?

[QUOTE=auctionjmm;19796966]Yes, that is what I'm saying. A salesman's job is to get the deal done. You walk into a car dealership to test drive a new car, their job is to sell you that car before you go to the next dealership to try option 2. Some people are very diligent and will visit a half dozen dealerships before making a decision. Some will buy the first car they test drive. This shouldn't surprise anyone. It's not abnormal. It happens in every walk of life.
[/QUOTE]

Well, you wrote that the family might have had a coupe of weeks to discuss selling the card with Fanatics. That is not the same as going to a single car dealership and being convinced to buy a vehicle off the lot that day. It would be like a person going to only one dealership and deciding after a week or two to buy a vehicle. But people generally don't just go to one dealership if they have plenty of time to look for a vehicle -- they shop around. They try to compare pricing and models.



[QUOTE=auctionjmm;19796966]1.) Personal details are not really personal in the absence of an identity. Entire books have been written by anonymous authors about real life events that happened to them. The anonymity in itself takes the personal touch out of it. You can tell their entire story and at best we've narrowed it down to one of 200,000 households that were evacuated. The story is personal only to the one telling it. To everyone else, it's Family A from LA.[/QUOTE]

Personal details can be used to identify someone. That is what investigators and reporters do. The details revealed about the child and family are quite specific and can be used to eventually cross match with other details or a list of people.

[QUOTE=auctionjmm;19796966] 2.) This is true of most conspiracy theories. It's always the unanswered questions that lead to suspicion. Jesus, JFK, The Moon Landing, 9/11, Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon, Osama Bin Laden, Covid, Trump Assassination attempts...that's just scratching the surface. There will always be holes and there will always be people who look at those holes with suspicion.

We will never know everything about everything. And guess what? Even if Topps did release the entire story and the family went on ESPN and told their story, and the shop owner joined them and promoted his shop...there would STILL be people who wondered if it was all a ruse to sell boxes while the owner knew all along which box it was in and saved it for a kid to make the story feel good.

All of the above is also the reason this thread may never end. It's truly a bunch of people sharing "what if" scenarios. Some are genuinely curious, some have a vendetta against Topps and wish to speak it into existence, some are trolling, some are sheep. One thing we ALL have in common is none of us know the entire story from start to finish and who the players are. And we may never.[/QUOTE]

An appropriate analogy for the Skenes Debut Patch card is if the country the 9/11 terrorists originated from was never publicly revealed. Can you imagine how much it would have driven conspiracy theorists?

Literally the first thing to be mentioned about any news-worthy event is where that event took place. Not revealing where the Skenes redemption card was obtained from is highly conspicuous.

[QUOTE=Hail2TheVictors;19796980]And there have been plenty of people who hit high end cards that choose not to send to Goldin.

Here is an idea - take a break with the conspiracy theories, and let things play out.[/QUOTE]

I never said they should have sold with Goldin. But considering they decided to sell the card via an auction house, why wouldn't they have at least contacted Goldin, considering it's the leader in selling the type of card they own?

[QUOTE=whitmm;19796984]Some people here made it pretty obvious that they be fine if Topps truly did backdoor the card if it meant Goldin didn't get a chance to sell it.[/QUOTE]

This reads like a confession. Looks like whit's on board guys, only a couple left to convince. We need 10+ pages tomorrow, waterboard the holdouts with repetitive posts until they relent!

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796998]Well, you wrote that the family might have had a coupe of weeks to discuss selling the card with Fanatics. That is not the same as going to a single car dealership and being convinced to buy a vehicle off the lot that day. It would be like a person going to only one dealership and deciding after a week or two to buy a vehicle. But people generally don't just go to one dealership if they have plenty of time to look for a vehicle -- they shop around. They try to compare pricing and models.





Personal details can be used to identify someone. That is what investigators and reporters do. The details revealed about the child and family are quite specific and can be used to eventually cross match with other details or a list of people.



An appropriate analogy for the Skenes Debut Patch card is if the country the 9/11 terrorists originated from was never publicly revealed. Can you imagine how much it would have driven conspiracy theorists?

Literally the first thing to be mentioned about any news-worthy event is where that event took place. Not revealing where the Skenes redemption card was obtained from is highly conspicuous.[/QUOTE]


You’ve got to stop. Comparing 9/11, where thousands of people died, to this is as stupid as it is insensitive. Get a life.

[QUOTE=Seitas;19797017]You’ve got to stop. Comparing 9/11, where thousands of people died, to this is as stupid as it is insensitive. Get a life.[/QUOTE]

I didn't compare the Skenes Debut Card to 9/11 -- I used it as analogy because the comment I was responding to referenced it to make a point about conspiracy theories.

You want the same level of transparency for terorists that killed thousands and a private citizen who pulled a baseball card. With all due respect please stop, you are awful at this and it makes you look completely out of touch with a reality the rest of us experience. It’s a really bad look.

It just seems like certain people in this thread don't actually want transparency from Topps/Fanatics -- they'd rather label those who ask questions and speculate on what happened as conspiracy theorists.

It's sad that we can't have an open discussion without people name-calling.

[QUOTE=Seitas;19797023]You want the same level of transparency for terorists that killed thousands and a private citizen who pulled a baseball card. With all due respect please stop, you are awful at this and it makes you look completely out of touch with a reality the rest of us experience. It’s a really bad look.[/QUOTE]

I never said I wanted to know the identity of the kid or the family -- I literally wrote the opposite.

I said I wanted to know how they obtained the card -- don't you? Was it a hobby shop? Was it an online dealer? These aren't personal details.

I swear, if Fanatics had claimed Santa Clause delivered the Skenes Debut Patch card to an eleven-year-old kid on Christmas morning, some of you would still label those who questioned the official story as conspiracy theorists and "out of touch".

On a somewhat related note -- Out of Touch is a great Hall & Oates song.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19797025]I never said I wanted to know the identity of the kid or the family -- I literally wrote the opposite.

I said I wanted to know how they obtained the card -- don't you? Was it a hobby shop? Was it an online dealer? These aren't personal details.[/QUOTE]

No fab, we don't. It's not that big of a deal. And it sure as hell isn't even comparable to a journalist deliberately withholding information from a terrorist attack. We don't know that Fanatics was told, yet you continue to insist that they are withholding that information.

Like I said, why aren't you in the Ohtani threads pulling this BS?

There are tons of big cards that we never know where they purchased the box from. I've never gone to a card show and asked a dealer for the entire transaction history of a card they have out. I've never once messaged an eBay seller about how they obtained a card. I've never once speculated that a BO member obtained a card through nefarious means when they didn't say where they bought a box.

Updated leaderboard.

[img]https://i.ibb.co/0ypRn7FC/IMG-0281.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796929]So you're saying the family let Fanatics convince them to let them auction the card off before doing the most basic due diligence by contacting Goldin? The sales data are clear, Goldin sells the most super high-end modern trading cards -- Fanatics is at best a far second.



The main reasons why there have been so much speculation and conspiracy theories on what happened with the Skenes card is:

1.) There have been no details publicly released on where the card was obtained from. The owner and/or Fanatics is being secretive about it. Yet, many personal details were released by Fanatics about the owner and their family.

2.) The facts about the Skenes Debut Patch card have not precluded the possibility of multiple conspiracy theories being true. Without more verifiable information coming to light, there is no way to disprove many of the theories. The secrecy and lack of details involving the card is creating an environment where alternative narratives about the card are cropping up and being disseminated on the internet.[/QUOTE]

It's also possibly true that none of the conspiracy theories are true and that the only true theories are that Topps is too large of a company that vertically integrated the industry, so that they have control of: the design, manufacturing, distribution, sale, and now resale of a product that they have a monopoly on. This allows them to have a heads up over any competition, so they can kill it. If I were Topps, I'd make all big cards a redemption and then give the owners a sweetheart deal. This is what monopolies do. There's 0 accountability, so the story about whether the family is real or not is not important. What's important is that Topps is engaging in anticompetitive behavior and then charging customers through the nose and out the ears for products that used to not be so expensive. That's the true story out of this.

[QUOTE=KhalDrogo;19797070]Updated leaderboard.

[img]https://i.ibb.co/0ypRn7FC/IMG-0281.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]

Updated to a Golden Sombrero of posters I already had blocked. :flex:

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796820]The fact that Ken Goldin wasn't even able to get in touch with the owner of the card supports the idea that something scandalous could be going on with the Skenes card. How hard would it have been to do a quick search on the internet for the best trading card auction platforms and find Goldin at the top of the list?

Ken is all about marketing and publicity. He leverages social media and video to promote auctions. He's a hobby hustler who works hard to get eyes on high-value sports collectibles.

The card being sold through Fanatics means it stays in Fanatics' "ecosystem". That means that if it indeed had been backdoored or funneled to a specific person, it is less likely to be discovered -- it stays in-house and under the control of Fanatics, who manufactured, distributed, and auctioned-off the card.[/QUOTE]

Man you should go into comedy because this is gold

Oh wait....you are serious? :coffee:

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796998] But people generally don't just go to one dealership if they have plenty of time to look for a vehicle -- they shop around. They try to compare pricing and models.[/QUOTE]

It is a fool's errand to use generalities about people to explain why one specific family made a decision. As far as the car, even I've done both. I've owned 2 cars over the last decade. The first one I bought off the lot in under 2 hours with zero research done. The second I spent weeks looking at options and prices. If my own behavior can vary this much in the same scenario repeated twice, I couldn't begin to predict the decision-making mindset of a random family across the country.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19796998]Personal details can be used to identify someone. That is what investigators and reporters do. The details revealed about the child and family are quite specific and can be used to eventually cross match with other details or a list of people.[/QUOTE]

Yes, if they were suspected of murder there is no doubt that an agency would spend months compiling a list of 200,000 addresses, looking at birth data, tax records, employment records, and whittling down the list enough to hopefully deploy surveillance and eventually find a legitimate suspect. This, however, is a baseball card and nobody is interested enough to spend the time and resources to cross reference this.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19797024]An appropriate analogy for the Skenes Debut Patch card is if the country the 9/11 terrorists originated from was never publicly revealed. Can you imagine how much it would have driven conspiracy theorists?

Literally the first thing to be mentioned about any news-worthy event is where that event took place. Not revealing where the Skenes redemption card was obtained from is highly conspicuous.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19797025]I never said I wanted to know the identity of the kid or the family -- I literally wrote the opposite.

I said I wanted to know how they obtained the card -- don't you? Was it a hobby shop? Was it an online dealer? These aren't personal details.[/QUOTE]

We know the city they are from and that is enough for most people. I think you overestimating the percentage of people who need to know the specific shop or dealer. I hadn't even considered this. Before this thread took off, I read the story and my only thoughts were A.) Glad it was hit and this won't turn into an Evan Longoria situation, and B.) Happy it was a kid. If it weren't for this thread, I would have never thought about it again.

[QUOTE=fabiani12333;19797024]It just seems like certain people in this thread don't actually want transparency from Topps/Fanatics -- they'd rather label those who ask questions and speculate on what happened as conspiracy theorists.

It's sad that we can't have an open discussion without people name-calling.[/QUOTE]

Transparency, to me, is a checklist, odds sheet, mock-ups of the product design, a specific release date, advertisement of the sale date and time, and which SKUs will be available. If there is a pack-out error, transparency is informing the public that you are aware and providing an explanation once you've found one. If an employee is caught stealing like the USPS story that just came out, transparency would be an acknowledgement that this happened and that you've terminated the employee and are increasing surveillance/security at your facilities. That is what I expect from Topps when it comes to transparency. I don't want or need to track where cases are going and who is pulling big hits or where those hits are being pulled.

Have we hit bottom yet?

9 Days and 14 Hours until Pitchers and Catchers report.

Q for the skeptics. That Dynasty Black Ohtani 1/1 was recently redeemed in-person by Heritage. Whoever pulled the card sent the redemption card to Heritage for them to redeem and then auction. So at this point, Fanatics/Topps doesn't even know who pulled it, and thus the public could never know either (Heritage will never reveal that info).

Does this make you all uncomfortable? Is it bad? Is it better or worse than the Skenes situation?

[QUOTE=here2havefun;19796964]Eh I need to stop with this thread. Every time I wander in here I think there must be something interesting happening with this story, but it's always speculation and people who seem desperate for drama.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=here2havefun;19797161]Q for the skeptics. That Dynasty Black Ohtani 1/1 was recently redeemed in-person by Heritage. Whoever pulled the card sent the redemption card to Heritage for them to redeem and then auction. So at this point, Fanatics/Topps doesn't even know who pulled it, and thus the public could never know either (Heritage will never reveal that info).

Does this make you all uncomfortable? Is it bad? Is it better or worse than the Skenes situation?[/QUOTE]

The thing to remember is that for a lot of people here, the main goal is just to give Fanatics another black eye. Whether deserved or not (and they’ve definitely earned their share of black eyes in the past). If the Ohtani card was more high profile, people would be piling on that too, but for now, this is where the attention is.