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Card Care, Grading, and the Line Between Preservation and Alteration | Kurts Card Care
00:35:48
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- [00:00]
A
Stuff that's like 100 years old could be just filthy dirty. And you can clean these cards so much. Like, this is where I'll get the most like, like, thing, right? Like, well, soak a card and get all the wrinkles and dirt to come out of it, and then teach people how to dry them. And at first, it blows people away, which goes back to one of your earlier questions. This stuff freaks people out because they never seen somebody soak a 1952 Mickey Mantle until they met me.
- [00:24]
B
I kind of got a little bit of a twitch, you say in the word soak.
- [00:30]
C
Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, we take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
- [00:51]
B
What's up, guys? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network. You know, there's no doubt that everyone knows at this point my affinity for the hobby and getting back into it. And part of what I was talking about with my guest today before the episode got started was, hey, I get to, like, look at, like, a product or a card or something one day, and then the next day I'm talking to them. This is one of my favorite products in the hobby. I'm just go ahead and say that. And that's unpaid, unscripted. That just is the truth. And it is Kurt's card care. And it is. It smells really good. It's Kurt cologne.
- [01:30]
A
Ryan, what's up, man? Thanks for the amazing introduction, and thanks for taking the time to have me on, dude.
- [01:36]
B
Hey, dude. Big fan of what you're doing. Look, man, these are treasures. You use this word yourself. Treasure. We're treasure hunters. These are treasures. We got to take care of this stuff, man. Like, why don't you want it to look better? I mean, this ain't about, like, I love it.
- [01:55]
A
I can. You know, I can. I'll raise my hand. I'll raise both my hands for that one.
- [01:58]
B
Yeah. I started looking around when I got back into the hobby. I started looking around for a few different things because it been. I. I really put it on the shelf. Like, okay. Got into. I was a basketball player year round in high school and middle school and put the cards up, and they didn't come back out till my kids got into it. So I was like, 25 years on the shelf, and when I came back into it, I was looking for a few things. I was like, number one. Okay, there's got to be apps now. It's got to be apps, right? We got to have technology to manage our collections. All that. That's right. Okay, all right. We got new looking cards. We got that. All right, all right. It's got to be a better way to, to keep up with them, to call it, you know, keep. To clean them or to like, there's got to be something. It was like it took me a year to find you because I didn't really have time. I was doing it passively and then finally, like I tripped over it and I was like, oh, yeah, this is what makes sense. We've got to take care of these car. Like sometimes you got just small. It's not even a blemish. It's just like a smudge, like your finger. Grimy fingerprints. How can we do this and not hurt the card? And here you are.
- [03:02]
A
I hear you, man. That's. See I'm, I'm the. I feel like I have the, that, that same thought ever since I was a kid, you know, I'm like, they are, they are our little pieces of treasure, right? So, like, that was, that was as much as little treasure as I got. I just knew that I always had to take good care of them. And I always looked for Ryan to be a customer of a company like mine because I figured it existed. Yeah, I figured there's got to be a way to get common things off of our little collectibles, our little treasures. And I just never found anything that was like, satisfactory. And then like being like a person that's always. I come from a family that embraced art, that embraced a lot of hands on stuff and being creative and stuff like that. And if we didn't have a tool for something, we'd figure it out, you know, and that's really, you know, just. I couldn't, I couldn't find Akurt's card care that had all the issues that I wanted to work on. So, man, I just started piecing it together years and years ago and, you know, I just, I took a chance probably about five and a half years ago, and I'm like, I'll make an Instagram page, see what people have to say about it. And the market, you know, really spoke for itself. And it turns out that everybody's waiting for something that was, you know, practical and easy and reliable to like, kind of add a whole new layer of, you know, like collecting.
- [04:15]
B
Talk to me and I want to talk some specifics around the process, procedures, what to do, how you. I think there's some fast, I think for people that either know your products, but probably haven't heard you talk about them explicitly or people that are just hearing this first time, like, when I did and going, oh, my God. Oh, really? And hitting the order button, like, but what was it like? Like, is it the. Does Kurt. Did Kurt have a laboratory at his house? Like, what was the process for developing this product?
- [04:49]
A
Yeah, dude, that's pretty much right. That's exactly. That's exactly it. So, like, I'll give you the. You can unpack it further if you want, but I'll try to trim it down because I forgot, like, people who are watching this would be like, what does this guy do? Like, what is he talking about? So, like, even trying to, like, meet other adults through, like, kids, sports, they'll ask me what I do. And I'm like, well, I make some great products to teach people how to take care of their Pokemon cards and baseball cards. It's kind of hard to even explain, right? But where it all started, really, Ryan, was just me being a particular person and a collector my whole life. And I've always. I give a lot of credit to my mother. My mom is an amazing artist, but my dad was a crazy mechanic, and he was very good with science. And my mom was super artistic. So, like, just in the household I grew up in, it was like, you fix up with art or science and really, sure enough, dude, the things I've loved since I was a little kid, like playing guitars, listening to music, collecting cards are really things that I just really kind of stayed with professionally through my whole life. But, like, when it came to the card care stuff, I started my family owned a dealership. Okay. So, like, when you work in a.
- [06:02]
B
Body shop growing up, I know where this is going. Yes.
- [06:06]
A
I'm around really creative, awesome people. My father was a fabricator, Great painter. Like, people that could do amazing stuff, like Detroit mechanics is where I'm from. Okay. So, like, guys that were real good at their hands. And then, like, so when it came to working in the body shop and we did car. Not card shows, but car shows, like, every weekend we'd compete and also we would race. So, like, I had a really fun kind of weekends growing up. So one of my deep. My jobs was to detail everything, keep everything super tight and super clean. So that didn't really. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. And so then, you know, being. I always like how stuff is made. I'm always just a big. I could watch, like, how it's made the TV show, like, on binge watch for the rest of my life, probably and still want to watch more of them. Like, I'm really. I love how stuff ticks and, like, the essence of how stuff's all put together. Like, I was watching people. There were some people that cleaned cards or tried to improve them. I wasn't like, the only person ever thought of this, but it was usually with, like, other Windex.
- [07:08]
B
Yeah. The wrong.
- [07:11]
A
The wrong blend.
- [07:12]
B
Ajax. Yeah.
- [07:15]
A
Salsa that's, like, mild, and then there's salsa that will, like, put you in the hospital. That's kind of like the same thing. Like, metaphorically speaking, is like chemicals. You know what I mean? So, like, there is some really easy, responsible, great ways to take care of paper and plastic, but it's usually not achieved through stuff that's under your sink or on the shelf in your garage. So that's where I really stepped up and was like, I'm gonna make stuff because it doesn't exist. And I'm a stubborn mule, Ryan. Like, I will do something over. I will fail 1,000 times in a row just to get it right. Dude, I'm just. And that can be a strength and an annoyance for those around me.
- [07:51]
B
But.
- [07:51]
A
But when it comes to the building and testing and everything. Yes, that's how I started. And fortunately, now I don't have to have a kitchen laboratory anymore. Right out back, we have a beautiful, state of the art laboratory and facility where now I have my own professional lab. And this is where we develop and manufacture all of our products.
- [08:15]
B
Where's home?
- [08:16]
A
We are in Detroit, Michigan.
- [08:18]
B
Detroit, Michigan. Hey, how the automotive hub they, you know, right there.
- [08:21]
A
Go figure. All my family, man, was all. All, all immigrant auto workers.
- [08:26]
B
It's so funny when you brought up the car. Look, I owned. I've done the entrepreneur thing for 10 plus years, I think I keep saying 10 years, and I feel like it was two years ago. And I said, I think it's my ticker is not adding up enough.
- [08:39]
A
But when you're entrepreneur, you enter the time warp and all of a sudden.
- [08:43]
B
You'Re like 30 years, 12 years now, because I left the corporate world. I did kind of venture back in, like half a second and then got back out again. But nonetheless. So it's. I could see, like, Kurt playing in the lab. Like, you know, 10 years ago, seven years ago. Whenever you started like that, I'm seeing you in a white coat with beakers or something. Like, it's smoke. Like, I don't know why my brain goes to the tv, you know, version. I know it doesn't all work that way, but.
- [09:14]
A
Yeah, dude, I was always the kid that wanted like, you know, an art set for Christmas and a science lab, you know, I mean, like, I was. I always love putting stuff together.
- [09:23]
B
I think. Let me ask you this would.
- [09:27]
A
And you do.
- [09:27]
B
I'll say this. You know, once I finally got the product and was using it about four months ago, I went down the. The. The rabbit hole and watched all the videos. Not all. Maybe not everyone, but like all the ones that mattered for what I was trying to do. Do you think the average person would be surprised or disappointed with how, you know, far gone a card could kind of be versus what a little bit of just restoration and cleanup can bring back? It seemed to me like it was pretty magic.
- [09:58]
A
Thanks, man. I think that it's pretty. And you're a great person to speak on that, Ryan, because you and I didn't even know each other until today. Until you. Yeah.
- [10:06]
B
This is unscripted and it's unlike performed. I'm just a fan.
- [10:10]
A
Right. Thank you, man. Because it's like, you know, it's like my. My sister in law is a. Owns a great bakery and naturally when she brings me cookies, they're freaking amazing because she made them, you know, but you don't even know about my cookies, you know, So I think that most collectors would be surprised because one of my initial nudges to get into this, Ryan, and chase it down was I was. I'm 44 now. I was 20, probably 24. I put all my 1986 Fleer stickers and basketball cards together. I feel like I'm an artistic person, man. I feel like I got a good eye. I know what a corner dental. I know. I knew in my mind, dude. I sent all these cards in to get graded at Beckett. I got like fives and sixes on all these. I was like, crushed. I felt like. I felt like, like we're talking about card grading. Like, come on, get her. Get real. But I was so disappointed in myself. I was like, dude, what is this? Am I mad at them or am I mad at myself? What is going on here? That's when I started really going to card shows on the weekend and going up and talking to guys that had nines and tens. I'm like, do you do anything to this? How do you do this? What is this? You know? And I started collecting data.
- [11:18]
B
Yeah.
- [11:19]
A
So then, anyways, since I was so surprised about how low a card can like score or how condition sensitive they were, I had a lot to learn. So then when. Back to your question. If somebody gets some card Care stuff. And they have cards that are 20 years old, even if they're kept in their binders. You got 20 years worth of spring, fall, summer, winter, you know, all kinds of different atmospheres and stuff going on. You guys would be surprised. Like, I, I bet Ryan, when you did, like, did you do sports cards or Pokemon cards? Like, what were the ones that you.
- [11:48]
B
Cards I had, unfortunately. Prime junk wax era 87 to 92.
- [11:54]
A
Good. But good stuff that has patina on it to clean up, right?
- [11:58]
B
Yes.
- [11:59]
A
So regardless of the player, I bet you even found it was fun to play with these things after a while because it was like, oh, I can get this wax stain off or I can get this corner straight or whatever.
- [12:07]
B
I did that with a lot of 87 tops. Like, you know, base car, like crappy. They're all base cards. I guess. Like, that's the problem with some of them. They have no rarity because they're all printed, you know, 800 million times the same card. But yeah, I would play around with that. Like, I don't know what that powdery. I don't know what that substance is. Like you said, that just gets on there and it comes off though.
- [12:29]
A
It is. I think that rhinos a lot of the plastic stuff that they were kept in.
- [12:33]
B
Yeah.
- [12:33]
A
Plastic will degrade as the years go by and you'll get like a kind of like a surface degradation on those types of things. So it's. Hey, I. I'm. I might be easily amused, but I just always. I always love my card collection and I always thought it was fun to just like make them look good again. You know what I mean? It's like, who doesn't. Who doesn't clean up something like your space, your office, whatever? And it looks great and you feel good. I tell you, it's as silly as it sounds. Cleaning up your old collection is like a super cool feeling. And it's a good skill to have if you're an active collector, you can buy.
- [13:03]
B
So just so we put this to the bed. Like, what is the debate, though? Like, I get that if you're getting like the paint out or getting like you're truly changing the card, you know?
- [13:17]
A
Right.
- [13:18]
B
Like, yeah, there's boundaries here. Like, I'm getting my. I've got a professional, like waxing, like, you know, like putting a whole new coat of something on it or I don't know if that would be good, bad or different. Making things up because I don't know how to do these things. But pain or something. I'm. You Know, retouching it. But what is the heartburn over just purely cleaning up the cards and like restoring them without altering them. Why is there a heartburn about that?
- [13:48]
A
I think, Ryan, because like, a lot of times people don't like something until it's popular, you know, And I think that at first, and then sometimes you can think that like a few squeaky wheels speak for everybody, you know, grab a few bits of data and we think we painted a whole picture out of the trillions of bits of data out there, you know, because even like you as a person that's in touch with media and plugged in, you didn't find about me until a few months ago, you know, and the last thing.
- [14:18]
B
I thought was, wow, this is potentially a bad product doing bad things. No, the first thing I thought was, this makes a ton of sense and is amazing, right?
- [14:27]
A
And thanks for that. And that's. And that's yours. But somebody could totally. It's always rooted, you know, it's like.
- [14:32]
B
Again, I get the re. Touching thing, but.
- [14:35]
A
And that's what I'll say, right? Because like, here's what I would say to anybody. I'm assuming anybody watching this, I'm going to assume that they've never seen anything like this before or they might not know enough. So, like, the thing is, me personally, I never got into this for a business. It turned into one. But I got into this because I loved cards my whole life. I didn't, I don't. I grew up in a very blue collar family in Detroit. Cards were kind of like my treasure. They seemed way more important to me than anything else. You know what I mean? So, like, I started with a love of these things, and then 20 years ago, when I'm cleaning off the surface of cards and working out, figuring out ways to get wrinkles and dents out of them, never once did I think about, like, oh, this is. I'm gonna like, you know, teach this to the whole world or whatever like that. I just, I just enjoyed it. So I got good at it. And then I sit, send in these cards to get graded and I realize, hey, if you know how to clean off stuff off the front or clean off stuff off the back, or figure out, you know, shape them up, you get a higher score. And personally, as a competitive person, I like that. You know what I mean? Sure, the money's part of the picture. But me personally, if anybody wants to know, I don't even sell anything. I'm a pack rat collector. I am a collector. So the narrative of somebody Trying to say, like, I do this for a bunch of money. Nope, that don't work because I. I don't even sell my cards. I don't. They're all. They're all. I'm a hoarder.
- [15:51]
B
I am curious, though, what Kurt's hit rate is now. Like, now doing what you do. Like, if you. And I don't know that you do it, especially if you're packing them. But if you. If I gave you 10 cards, you know, that were in, you know, feasibility but had issues. But feasibility, like what your hit rate is, like, on getting, like tens, you.
- [16:15]
A
Yeah, like a 10.
- [16:15]
B
Because you probably know whether to even send it or not. Like, supportive. It's that, right?
- [16:19]
A
Good question, Ryan. Like, and like, kind of like what I was saying, like, is to improve them. I think every card has a potential for improving. One of the best things I can teach anybody that's into card care is how is the right stuff to look for and the right stuff to buy. That's where it starts.
- [16:34]
B
Yeah.
- [16:35]
A
Because you can't buy a bunch of cards that are PSA nines and say, put. Put this on the front and it's going to come back at 10. What if that's not even the problem? You know what I mean? But it's off centered. As a. As a card care person, you got to pretty much develop your eye of what's doable and what's not. So, like, I do. I create hundreds of videos, hundreds of teaching demonstrations. I go live every week trying to really educate collectors, like, what's doable and what's not. Because, like, what we were saying in the past question is, you know, I've knew, I always knew as a person that treasures and loves these things, I never would want to cut a card or trim a card. I'd feel like it would hurt my heart. Like, I don't want to trim it up. I don't want to add any stupid colors to it. I want to teach people how to remove those colors that people did before, you know, but. Yeah, I just always knew that that wouldn't be legit. But I always thought to myself, so coming from the automotive world, the huge thing that makes an automobile worth more money when you sell it is numbers matching, which means everything is stock. Everything is stock, showroom stock, original paint. Yeah, original, original color code, everything. So the thing is, if you. When I would look at cards, I always figured that's like a. It's a total modification. If you trim the card, color to card, it's out of bounds. And I'm not, I. I'm not into it. So I always thought do what you can do with the original materials and improve it to its best self. Getting a 10 since I always look went for like the broken, the beaten and the blue or the bruised. I never got tens, I just always got beat up ass cards that I thought were cool. That felt like treasure to me and it made me feel good just making them look better, you know what I mean? The value is almost in the time spent honestly Ryan. So like it was just like something as a person that is a creator and as an artist, like I like making stuff look cool. So, you know, lining up 10 cards that are like nines and trying to get them out of tens, I've never even tried that because I don't even care about that.
- [18:24]
B
Hey, you know, there you go. That alone should solve the any debate that's out there. And I didn't personally see it. So if somebody else wants to do.
- [18:32]
A
That, line up nine cards and do them. Do it.
- [18:34]
B
Yeah, no, I want to, I want to my store at least know what I'm buying. I don't like not let you know. You got to at least know.
- [18:41]
A
And it's hard for me to us to unpack and teach everybody here on this today. But like the probably the best thing is learning what's doable versus not, you know.
- [18:50]
B
Yeah, that's. I'd love for you to talk about that, Kurt. You know, and I'm talking with Kurt Colon. He is the founder of Kurt's Card Care. And this is a business specialized in cleaning, polish and restoring products for trading cards and collectors. So Kurt, talk to me about. Okay, what's. Fix is the wrong word, but I'm going to use it. I don't like that word.
- [19:15]
A
What's like you can break it down. We can do modern cards, vintage cards or Pokemon cards.
- [19:20]
B
Like let's talk about modern. Let's start at modern cards. What is improvable? Fix is the wrong word. Improvable.
- [19:29]
A
So most modern cards, and I'll preface that saying, even though 90s were a while ago, modern cards pretty much started in 90s. If you guys collect, you know, like Topps Chrome and Panini Prism, we'll just stay right there. Those cards, as years go by, the plastic, like Ryan can tell you on the front of them, they get cloudy, they get dingy. Even if you kept them in a nice place. It just happens, you guys. So like you can. That's one of the most satisfying things. If you guys ever watched my before and afters, and you see one that's just like. Looks like it's just cloudy. And then you see one right there. Ryan will even tell you it only takes 10 seconds. It's not even long. It's not a process. It's just seriously wiping it down. But then you'd say, like, well, you know, why can't you just use a towel? It just doesn't work that way. You got to be able to cut through that crap. So, like, cleaning up older cards, stuff that's new. Ryan. I make a. This right here, it's called recovery. It's a. It's a little light scratch remover. And it's great because a lot of the. A lot of the chrome cards and prism cards have a thick plastic cover, but they're scratch magnets, man. You know, they get real scratched up. So, like, if you get good with recovery, you can do a little light surface buff and eliminate little surface scratches. And then really finally, like, the things that you can do on the back of these modern cards is if you ever see dents and stuff on the back, I can even show people how to get dents out. So those would be, like, the top three things you could do with, like, a modern era.
- [20:50]
B
Can you get a crimp out from the print machine?
- [20:53]
A
Oh, dude, we can try.
- [20:55]
B
You know, dude, I should bring you up for that. Like, just come to a grand and we'll fly in and, like, literally. Yeah, that'd be, like, a fun thing. I have a JJ McCarthy, which literally autograph that one of my boys pulled as one of. When we got back into it, we ripped more than. I've already said this number a million times now, but let's just say 50k plus over, like, a year. Hey, it was time with the kids.
- [21:22]
A
That's right.
- [21:24]
B
Yeah, it was. But, you know, one of the first cars that we got that we were excited about was a J.J. mcCarthy rookie. This was last year, right? When the, you know, all the hype for those guys was high.
- [21:35]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [21:36]
B
And beautiful card. And it had a. And I'd never seen this. We'd already ripped for a fair amount a factory crimp all, like, across the bottom like I had never seen before.
- [21:47]
A
It's almost like it's, like, in the pack. Right, Ryan?
- [21:50]
B
Yeah. And some people try to play me for the. Well, it's one on one. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it is. And then people said, well, you could send it back to. Andy would probably replace it. But there was something nostalgic about it. But then I was like, you were just talking. I was like, that may be a bigger dent than you're talking about, though.
- [22:07]
A
But it might be possible because you would be blown away. And the thing is, everything that I teach Ryan, like, I'll tell people something about me. Like, I made this stuff for me first, so I had to learn how to love using this stuff before I expect anybody else to use it. And I'll tell you guys what, even though I've said in this interview that I'm stubborn, I'll do the same thing over and over. When it comes to working on a card, I don't have infinite patience. I want to get something done. I need to see some results or I'm. Or I'm getting a little, like, itchy. So like most things that I can teach how to do are pretty easy. So like, Ryan, when it comes to like the crimps on the bottoms offline, you shoot me a picture and I could probably give you a little recipe for it because there might be a possibility and then it might not budge, or it might never know.
- [22:48]
B
So. So we can get the dents off the modern. Talking modern cars. I took us off a little tangent there with my own personal. Hey, look, if I'm going to have on get people, I get to get my own personal stuff, you know? You know, I get at least lean into Kurt's knowledge. The. But. So the modern cars, we can get maybe some dents out that might be on the back. We can get surface level, small micro scratches potentially.
- [23:14]
A
Yep.
- [23:15]
B
What else with those modern cards that about it?
- [23:18]
A
You know, the good thing about modern cards is, Ryan, they're rigid and they're strong. So you don't have that. But the. But the. But the blemishes are a lot of times permanent. Because on the front. On the opposite, I like to educate people. Like what. What you're going to deal with if it's permanent. Those dimples on the front.
- [23:33]
B
Don't talk to me about dimples.
- [23:35]
A
Throw it out. You know, those. It's just, I imagine when they make those cards, there's a heat press involved. There's, you know, there's a manufacturing process and it's just. There's going to be little dimples on a thin, small piece of plastic at some times, you know, so those are unmovable. The word print line, that's a collector word that we'll use a lot.
- [23:53]
B
Yeah.
- [23:53]
A
Either print lines will be either dug into the card so deep it's like a river and ain't going nowhere. Sometimes they're a streak of grease and you can wipe them off and you're like magic. And other times it's a little light scuff and you can use like recovery to buff it out a little bit. Those are going to vary, you know.
- [24:08]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Proceed with expectations in check.
- [24:13]
A
Yeah. That most people that love. Here's something I can share with you. It has turned into, like such a crazy community that doing this. I would have never guessed. Right. I knew people would like cleaning cards, but you don't know when you come out and make a page and just put yourself out there and say, all right, you know, what do you guys think? You know, good, bad or indifferent, I'll hear it because how much are you ever gonna feel it out, you know?
- [24:40]
B
Yeah, yeah, dude, I. It's such a topic for discussion too. Like, like, how. What'd you do here? What'd you. I can just see the. Your forums or whatever you're in. Like, you gotta be tens of thousands of messages.
- [24:55]
A
It's. Yeah, that's what it is. That's really what I'm really doing right now. I really focus hard to like, give people great service, like, exceptional service. Because I know that if people start with card care and they can get over the first bump of like learning a few things, they'll love it and they'll do it forever. I also know if people like, get into it and like work on their best card with like a couple bits of information and screw something up, they're out forever. So I just felt like if I'm gonna do this right, I gotta give like my initial first few years of customers and always. But I mean, like, really hands on care. Because collectors, like, we. We roll together. So once you. Once you train 10,000 collectors how to collect or 50,000 collectors how to collect, take care of their cards, they're going to take care of their homies and everything will be cool, you know, But I really just knew that if I didn't support this product and like, treat it like a treat everybody like, my. They're my brother and like, welcome to the studio here every day. I just knew it wouldn't work. So as much as I got to work on these products, you know, it's like I got to teach people how to. How to use them well. And, you know, it'd be cool answering the same question 350 times a day.
- [25:58]
B
You know, I gotta say that's it. Right? Takes patience. Because it does. You create the videos to. And I'll probably.
- [26:04]
A
Let me.
- [26:04]
B
Go ahead. Kurt.
- [26:05]
A
Forgive me.
- [26:06]
B
Now I will. In our relationship and friendship, that is just getting started. But we'll be best buddies at some point, because I'm going to force you. But I will probably ask you something that there's a video on. But just be patient with me.
- [26:22]
A
That's allowed, you know, Ryan, you know, right. It's a blessing to be busy with something you created.
- [26:28]
B
That's true. Yeah. That's what you got to remember. All right, off track, I. I have so many things I like talking with Kurt about here. Vintage. What can we. What can be expected? What are the types of things that Kurt's card care helps with?
- [26:43]
A
My favorite. We could talk about paper vintage cards all day, like. But we'll. We'll keep it short, you guys. Even if you don't collect vintage paper cards right now, it's a good time to get involved because know. Know your history, man. You know, you can learn so much from vintage athletes, vintage stories. You know, I'm a. A huge heart. My heart is history. I love history. You know, from my family tree to, you know, the. All the baseball cards. So, like, with baseball cards, let's say cards. Vintage cards are from when they started until 1988. That would be vintage paper. And these are amazing, you guys, because they've been through so many eras. So, like, stuff that's like 100 years old could be just filthy dirty. And you can clean these cards so much. Like, this is where I'll get the most, like, aha, like, thing, right? Like, where I'll soak a card and get all the wrinkles and dirt to come out of it and then teach people how to dry them. And at first, it blows people away, which goes back to one of your earlier questions is like, where did people. This stuff freaks people out because they've never seen somebody soak a 1952 Mickey Mantle until they met me.
- [27:45]
B
You know, I kind of got a little bit of a twitch, you saying the word soak.
- [27:49]
A
Oh, dude, you gotta watch.
- [27:52]
B
I haven't watched that video yet.
- [27:54]
A
If you look at the. You guys, even. This is where I'll have watchers, Ryan, that don't even collect because of my vintage stuff. I'll have people that say, hey, when are you going to do one like this? Coming up? I'll be like, you working on one? They're like, oh, we don't even collect cards. We just like to watch the old ones.
- [28:07]
B
You do. I love that.
- [28:10]
A
So I do, too. And you know what? The vintage ones do. Do you know how many older couples that, like, for just an example I've had. You never know who your customers are until they say hello to you. Really? You know, I assume they're guys. I assume they're probably 30 to 50, but that's a bunch of them. But there's a lot of really cool people that don't fit that demographic. I have couples that are like, couples that are in their 70s and 80s that stopped building puzzles because now they go and get their old vintage cards, and they work on cards together as a husband and wife. Like, super sweet, touching stuff. You know what I mean?
- [28:44]
B
That is awesome.
- [28:45]
A
So, like. And that's where the vintage cards brings them in, because they grew up watching these dudes, you know what I mean?
- [28:53]
B
Now, does that soaking process, like, does that improve grading, or is it just a personal view?
- [29:01]
A
Huge improvement. You know what I mean? You got to do. You can't use friction on an old piece of paper, so you got to do what's best for the card. You know, card care. Right. So you gotta. The only way that you're gonna be able to. And. And, like, the fluids I use, you know, everything I build is archival grade, gold standard, and that's why I couldn't find this type of stuff. I know what it takes to build this stuff, but it just doesn't exist for the types of products we work on. You know, paint and ink on cards from the 40s and 50s is unique compared to stuff in the 70s and 80s. And if you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna find out.
- [29:38]
B
Kurt's work for you people. Yeah.
- [29:42]
A
You wanna. You wanna know a guy that's put 20,000 hours into this?
- [29:45]
B
Here you go.
- [29:46]
A
You know, you can go out and hit the wheel again, you know, but, yeah, that. So vintage is amazing. So you guys dig into the vintage, and all of these. All of these lessons, ryan, are on YouTube on playlists. So if you just, like, if you went to my Instagram channel, you just kind of see what's on my mind today. I'm. I have a very healthy amount of add, so you'll see randomness all over my daily channels. But all the. All the toolboxes are built on YouTube.
- [30:15]
B
I love it, man. What's, like, the one bit of advice for people or a couple bits that are getting into sort of restoring both old or new? Maybe some universal truths?
- [30:30]
A
Yeah, I mean, I would think that for me, like, if anybody's watching this and you just find it interesting and you're like, you know, that seems like something cool. I don't think it Takes more than that, I think. It's like something that I find that you'll do, but it's just like. Like, say the thing. Like, if whatever you. Whatever you like do. Say you like to exercise, you like to exercise, probably because it's good for you, but, you know, maybe you have a lot of good thoughts during it and, like, it just kind of brings out the best of you. I've had naturally, people share before and after, and they say, hey, I enjoyed, you know, look, look it. The product actually works or whatever. But I really find that people that have. Are built like this way. And if you don't want to do this, if you look at it and you're like, God, I would never want to deal with it. It gives me stress and anxiety. Don't ever buy this stuff, Don.
- [31:15]
B
Do it.
- [31:16]
A
You know what I mean? Like, I know a bunch of people love going golfing. I hate going golfing. Like, I don't ever want to go. It's like, I'll pass, thank you. You know what I mean? So, same thing with card care. But if you guys watch this and you see some of these before and afters, don't write a story that you're going to screw up and you suck. Write a story that you're like, hey, this is kick ass, and I'm going to get good at it and I'm going to learn because this dude, like, built all this stuff for me and, like, made a million videos to teach me, you know, that's what I would say.
- [31:40]
B
And I'll add one for you. And you, you put this on there. It seems simple, but use those worthless raw cards that you darn that are, you know, $0.02, $0.01, and nothing could improve the value. Test and practice on those.
- [31:57]
A
Isn't that the greatest? Isn't that the greatest? Because, like, when I see my old man bending out like a fender of a 1970 AAR Cuda, he didn't have a test one to go.
- [32:07]
B
Yeah, he didn't know.
- [32:09]
A
It was like, you nail this shit or it's not going to look good, you know? So it's like when someone's like, oh, I'm not going to be good at working my Pokemon. I want to be like, practice, dude.
- [32:18]
B
Get in the game, man. You got unlimited. You got unlimited base cards over there to practice with.
- [32:25]
A
I want to be like this tough guy, you know? Come on, don't give me that whining.
- [32:28]
B
And maybe the most important question, Kurt, is, do we have any kind of wholesale distributorship so that I can Carry this in the store, dude.
- [32:36]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. You know, that I, I, that's, that's really, Ryan, like a really special thing that we've had to help grow our company. You know, that's how you kind of check in to make sure, you know, you see your returning customers, you see your company grow. But then also, like, retailers pop up around the world and around the country, and it's, you know, from a guy that's works hard for everything, I couldn't thank anybody more than that. You know, just, you guys are my people and I just, I love you to death, man. So thank you so much.
- [33:05]
B
Well, we're gonna have a spot here at Collector Station, and I'm gonna get Bella to get details on that, because I want to, I want to have it in the store because, you know, it's, it's one of those things that you can't unsee and, or unuse and you want to, hey, if you're got a half a good bone in your body, you want to share it with somebody.
- [33:25]
A
That's awesome, man. I can't thank you enough for that, Ryan.
- [33:27]
B
Hey, man, where can everybody, you know, buy direct, learn more, keep up, watch video? You mentioned the YouTube. Give all the handles.
- [33:35]
A
Yeah, man. So, like, you guys, I'm pretty much at the seat Monday through Monday. You were eight days a week. But Instagram is a place where I get a lot of direct messages and I answer them, you know, because I, and I will answer this one. Yeah, I did. That's how you guys met me. So then same with Facebook. And then I'm on YouTube and then people go through my, my emails. But the Kurt's Card Care is the website pretty much. You search the word Kurt's Card Care, you'll find me. All right, so that's. But yeah, if you guys want to watch the weekly live show, I do that Wednesday nights, 10pm EST on Instagram. And I'll always grab a vintage card, Pokemon card, and a new card to show love to all my customers and all the stuff that they love to work on and collect. And I've also, I also take requests, I write them down all week of what people are asking for, what they want to learn. So, like, I like to be interactive and just like run a kick ass, fun company that, like, my customers kind of drive it, you know, Like, I just kind of facilitate it and just let them have fun with it, you know, and that's, that's important to me. And that's how we do it.
- [34:38]
B
Well, you got a fan here with me and everything at Collector Nation. So I really appreciate you for coming on Curtin. I love your products.
- [34:47]
A
Thank you, Ryan. I am. I am sincerely grateful for that, dude. And I look forward to connecting more. Have me back again because I want to get updated on all the projects you guys are working on and I can't wait to come down south and see that wonderful story you're putting together.
- [35:00]
B
Exactly. We'd love to have you. It's K U R T S. That's Kurtz with a K. Kurt's card care. We'll have all the links in the show notes and of course on the website, the collectornation.com we're bringing you the best, the brightest, the coolest, the innovative of collectibles and trading cards here on the network. We appreciate Kurt. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Collector Nation.
- [35:28]
C
Thanks for tuning in to the show. Be sure to follow us on your go to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at collectornation. Com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.