Nat Turner posts IG photo with Gonblott aka Nick Uliano

[mindcycle]

I know Abra will get a kick out of this one when he eventually sees this..





For most of us past BO regulars we may already be familiar with this guy, but if you're not please do yourself a favor and check out Abra's very detailed research and explanation of his alleged past pumping/shilling/market manipulation via the link below.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showpost. ... tcount=111

Idk about you guys, but I feel Nat associating with this guy is probably not the best look. Things is, most IG users probably have no idea of his past. As we've seen countless times in the current hobby landscape, people are quick to forgive and forget. Especially if someone has a card or can get access to a card you want. In a huge money industry like sports cards (at least as it stands in today's landscape) where there is zero regulation, guys like Gonblott who essentially laid the groundwork for the pyramid scheme the current hobby has become get to prance around hang out with the biggest names in the industry like nothing happened. Sad really..

[AbraCalabro]

lmfao

birds of a feather man

amazes me that people think turner is a good guy, he's the same as the people he surrounds himself with

as for gonblott...what he has, himself, posted publicly is more than enough evidence to show what type of slime ball he is

that whole clique is garbage, they killed the hobby

[SacKingsCards]

I'm with you guys. Never understood the obsession with these guys who own 5 and 6 figure cards that talk about the card market ad nauseum. Funny how they rarely talk about, you know, the cards themselves. Still can't believe no one cares that this guy with a hugely valuable collection is the head of the main grading company in the hobby. The conflicts of interest are impossible to ignore.

[ZSCollects]

As somebody who never used blowout or had any idea any of this was a thing. Thank you all for doing God's work, making the public aware.

[mindcycle]

lmfao

birds of a feather man

amazes me that people think turner is a good guy, he's the same as the people he surrounds himself with

as for gonblott...what he has, himself, posted publicly is more than enough evidence to show what type of slime ball he is

that whole clique is garbage, they killed the hobby

Dude was setting false comps and pumping specific cards/sets decades before it became the cool thing to do. No wonder all the guys who have majorly profited off the hobby these past few years look the other way and hang around him. Some of them probably look up the the guy. What a sad "hobby" card collecting has become..

I'm with you guys. Never understood the obsession with these guys who own 5 and 6 figure cards that talk about the card market ad nauseum. Funny how they rarely talk about, you know, the cards themselves. Still can't believe no one cares that this guy with a hugely valuable collection is the head of the main grading company in the hobby. The conflicts of interest are impossible to ignore.

Definite conflict of interest. Cards have become a status symbol now. I know Nat is a set collector and I can respect that path since as much as it's a grind, it can be really rewarding as well. Sadly, nowadays to collect a lot of the cool 90's sets any normal person would need to remortgage their house first. That's why it's so interesting to me that Nat would associate with a guy like Gonblott.. Someone who essentially set the stage to make it more difficult and expensive for him to complete the sets he chases.

Nat used to voice his opinion regarding PSA upcharges back in his blowout days, but after buying Collectors he's suddenly silent and upcharges seemingly got worse.. Just makes you wonder..

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1285177

As somebody who never used blowout or had any idea any of this was a thing. Thank you all for doing God's work, making the public aware.

All credit goes to Abra for exposing him many years ago. I felt it necessary to provide awareness here and on IG because people have the right to know.

[dengbang]

The funny part is that once you meet gonblott in person, regardless of knowing his past or not, you quickly realize he's not someone from the hobby you want to hang around.

[AbraCalabro]

Dude was setting false comps and pumping specific cards/sets decades before it became the cool thing to do. No wonder all the guys who have majorly profited off the hobby these past few years look the other way and hang around him. Some of them probably look up the the guy. What a sad "hobby" card collecting has become..

I honestly don't doubt that for a second. Look at how these losers all defend each other. It's funny that they're shrewd as hell when it comes to money and dealing / trading cards, but when you show them 20/20 vision proof of something that benefits them being rotten, all of a sudden their brain cells come to a screeching halt.

The funny part is that once you meet gonblott in person, regardless of knowing his past or not, you quickly realize he's not someone from the hobby you want to hang around.

LOL

This is not the first time I've read this / heard this about him.

[benxcrunner1]

Even reading that old forum post, I haven't the faintest idea of what Nick U did. I don't know if there is some type of "hobby cabal" but I'm too new to know the history. I'll buy anyone a coffee if they're willing to go in depth on the history of it all but you gotta name names.

[AbraCalabro]

Even reading that old forum post, I haven't the faintest idea of what Nick U did. I don't know if there is some type of "hobby cabal" but I'm too new to know the history. I'll buy anyone a coffee if they're willing to go in depth on the history of it all but you gotta name names.

There definitely is a group of associates that you could call a cabal. Goes way back to over a decade, close to 15 years now. That's a super long discussion.

Nick seems all about the shilling, price fixing, hyping and I wouldn't trust his MJ camp autos ever.

His main thing that he does is to look at what's selling, acquire whatever the hot card is, then generate as much discussion about the card and its value to raise interest and then it will turn out he has the exact card, or a card matching the description / attributes of a patch / auto that he uses to generate discussion. He will also use aliases and different personas so that he can buy the cards without any one knowing that it's him buying the cards.

Two major examples that have visible evidence behind them are the Jordan PMG red 023/100 and the LeBron James RPA /99. I forget the serial number on Nick's copy, but I'll try to make this short:

In a discussion on Hobby Kings (old school hobby forum that was THE place to be back in the day), now defunct, Nick participated in a thread discussing the Kobe PMG green 008/100. Using a secondary account, he commented that who ever has the Jordan 023/100 should cash in. I think it was a year later, more/less, all of a sudden, using his main account "Gonblott" he makes a thread asking for opinions on a card...which just so happens to be the Jordan PMG red 023/100, wow, what are the odds?! That this same exact guy, out of the billions of people on the planet, happens to land this exact card, with this exact serial number...? He claimed it wasn't his card, but was just looking to get opinions on condition / value. Later in an interview with cardboard chronicles, he talks about acquiring this card coupled with a story about some hooker, or something, out of Vegas got in touch with him about the card lol. The video has since been made private after he got the spotlight on him on the BO forums.

Much later, 2016-2018, using the alias NYFAN2014, he would bump discussion about the LeBron RPA /99, inquiring how much it was worth. What's it worth now? He also mentioned that he was looking to get a copy of the LeBron RPA /99 with particular attributes, I think it was a 3 color patch, bold auto and in a BGS 8.5 or maybe 9. Well...surprise, surprise, all of a sudden, before long, Nick has a copy of the card, with those exact attributes that he used to describe what he was looking for under the alias of NYFAN2014 - except, at the time no one knew NYFAN2014 was him. Which makes the following even more hilarious, he posted, using his own name, on some guy's Youtube video saying that it was a 150k card now (at whatever the present time was) - meanwhile, he kept thread bumping inquiring about the value of the card under his alias.

LeBron RPA price check thread, started back in 2016. Ran into 2018. In this thread, around page 3-5 a BGS 9.5 copy is listed for sale...which of course, he doesn't buy lol. (Also associated with Eric Bitz who was sitting on a small pile of these RPAs, Eric is associated with the buyer of the BGS 9.5 at allegedly 250k. LBJ RPAs in that condition then basically got price fixed at 250k+...that's another messy story.) Anyway, Nick as NYFAN2014 no longer bumps the thread after 2018 lol, I really have to wonder how cheap he got the card relative to the speculation.
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthrea ... &t=1008759

^^^ There are screen shots of him showing his RPA off in 2018 if I remember correctly. All this is from memory, but I think it's pretty much spot on.


That's his pattern.

Pick up as cheap as possible in secret.

Discuss / hype the card.

Turns out he has the card.

[benxcrunner1]

Maybe it just shows the current state of things, that this doesn't even sound all that bad to me. If you're going to let 1 person or a couple pretend people hype up a card and that alone influences you to spend more, well then you're kind of to blame IMO. Many accounts on IG hype and pump shit left and right so it has become normalized. Can't put put pandora back in the box, cards are approaching being accepted as a viable and credible alternative investment / speculative investment. I don't see it ever going back. In some ways I think it is good, but in other ways, the greed fuels more shadiness and dishonesty.

I have my gripes with PSA, you know Nat often championing not worrying about the value of your cards and to stop caring about the value and just be interested in collecting, while also having his business PSA up charge the f*** out of you if they can squeeze more grading fees from you based on card value. BUT PSA is at least trying to crack down on grading cards that have been altered or backdoored, more so than any other grading company.

In regards to a hobby cabal. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. If the people on this thread exchanged numbers, and decided we'll each bid on specific cards of each other that we own, raise the comp and then dump at auction once the card is sufficiently pumped / manipulated and split the profits, it wouldn't be that hard at all.

[AbraCalabro]

Maybe it just shows the current state of things, that this doesn't even sound all that bad to me. If you're going to let 1 person or a couple pretend people hype up a card and that alone influences you to spend more, well then you're kind of to blame IMO. Many accounts on IG hype and pump shit left and right so it has become normalized. Can't put put pandora back in the box, cards are approaching being accepted as a viable and credible alternative investment / speculative investment. I don't see it ever going back. In some ways I think it is good, but in other ways, the greed fuels more shadiness and dishonesty.

I have my gripes with PSA, you know Nat often championing not worrying about the value of your cards and to stop caring about the value and just be interested in collecting, while also having his business PSA up charge the f*** out of you if they can squeeze more grading fees from you based on card value. BUT PSA is at least trying to crack down on grading cards that have been altered or backdoored, more so than any other grading company.

In regards to a hobby cabal. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. If the people on this thread exchanged numbers, and decided we'll each bid on specific cards of each other that we own, raise the comp and then dump at auction once the card is sufficiently pumped / manipulated and split the profits, it wouldn't be that hard at all.

You mentioned in an earlier post that you're kinda' new, just out of curiosity, when did you start getting into, or back into this hobby? Going off your opening sentence in the first paragraph, sadly, I think that's the state of things for most people who are relatively new, or super new. Keep in mind some of us have never stopped collecting, or have come back to the hobby for over a decade. A lot of people want to fit in and get whatever attention they can, so they just go along with the status quo and then you also have people who are brainless followers, they just don't care, even beyond what we're discussing...they don't care, unless the talking heads care. Sports cards are also a great vehicle for laundering money, I watched something on Pokemon cards (Pokemon is as bad, or worse than basketball in terms of shit heads coopting the hobby) the other day and the Japanese Yakuza actually uses Pokemon cards to launder money state side here in the U.S. You're right, you can't put Pandora back in the box, but that basically signifies that it's a dead hobby, it's a tit for tat on raising prices and creating hype around sets that have been so "underappreciated" ...or "undervalued" as they would put it, for so long. Then you have Fanatics going in the direction of gambling and the NBA not giving two shits...I'd hold on to anything you really like, especially if it's one of those overvalued 90s parallel sets. Related: Check out the attached image...this is everywhere now.

None of this aligns with hobbyist interests:

I can't take anything about PSA trying to crack down seriously until they deactivate the T201 card that they're basically founded on. Turner also hilariously complained about PSA trying to squeeze him on a card he was grading with them and of course, now that he benefits, he's magically seen the light. As for him championing not worrying about value, I have to admit I got a chuckle out of that. He will not sell you anything at market value, ask me how I know. (Never completed a deal though.) As for them cracking down on altered, or backdoored, the heart and soul of that is most likely one of the guys from BODA, known as 90swax.

Re: the hobby cabal, yeah, that's actually what has been happening for about 15 years now. They even got caught doing it. Started with Michael Jordan cards and the shit continues to roll down hill. The same cards would exchange hands within the same circle and the only high selling examples were the ones associated with people in the clique. For any one to even dare to collect Michael Jordan now, you're basically f***ed.

[benxcrunner1]

I got back in around the pandemic. Working from home is great but sometimes boring so I collect to break up the monotony. The whole thing has the drama (sometimes good and sometimes bad) of wrestling or a thrilling TV series... IG - It's entertaining to say the least. It's cool to see passionate collectors share cards and stories that mean something to them. but it can also be like a bad car crash you can't not look at.


Another thought I've had recently about all this is how many people who complain about the current state of the card market who either 1. directly caused and contributed to the current state, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and 2. how many people that complain previously reaped the benefits of cards going up in value. There are some people with a large "audience" and platform that are now complaining that cards are too expensive and they want to shrink the hobby lmao.

I do feel for the people who, despite benefiting from cards going up in value, would trade all the money they've made to go back to how things were before all the hype.

Also, appreciate you spelling out a lot of the history Abra.