East Coast National Saturday

Saturday at the East Coast National in White Plains, NY. Usually, Saturday is the busiest day as far as traffic at the booth goes. This is the day that the general public turns out and for obvious reasons. Most people have real jobs Monday through Friday. This means more customers and more orders but smaller orders. It also means we, as graders, get to see a more variety of cards.

There was some great material submitted on Saturday. While this show has turned more shiny than vintage, the quality of vintage was very nice. Got to chat with and advise a gentleman that had binders of T-cards. His one-page sample of T206 cards included nearly all HoF’ers including 2 Cobbs and 2 Mathewsons.

I wish I could report on the state of the dealer floor more but I cannot. I left the booth twice during the entire day, both times were a bee-line to the bathroom. I will say the crowd appeared to be large. It was hard to navigate a path to the bathroom. I hope that meant some money for the dealers. I don’t get much time at shows to shop around for my own collection but sometimes do get 20-30 minutes. This show I have spent exactly zero dollars. Such is life.

We did get to the see the famous Sooz, the legendary Beckett editor and Beckett friend Dan Good. It was so nice to see Sooz, in fact that we had to break her heart and tell her the card she submitted was a fake. Hopefully she can get her money back from Paypal on that one. That is one part of my job that stinks. Hard to believe, but I do not enjoy having to tell someone that the card they have is a fake. Just as bad is explaining an altered card. The thought of buying a bad card raw from places like eBay may scare off some people from submitting a card for grading but the truth is, it is better to find out and be sure it is real and unaltered. You do not want to pass on a fake card to another collector, even unknowingly. I have personally had to bite the bullet and eat a card that turned out to be fake. I certainly didn’t want to pass it on to someone else and they find out after they pay to have it graded. You know the old “Do until others…” The hobby could use a little more honesty.

While today was very busy, it is the second shortest day of the show for us. It also means that if there is not a large amount of cards to grade after the show, there is usually a dinner for us. This time, like many times in White Plains before, we chose P. F. Changs.  I hate to be negative but this part warrants the truth. We waited until 8:30 to do dinner. The crowd was lighter and we had no problem with seating. That was the end of the good service. Without going into details, the service was poor at best. Changs is generally a good chain and I have never had a problem before, even at this location. IT is too bad. A manager circled the dining room talking into his lapel and saw us visibly unpleased with empty glasses but never bothered to stop by. ‘Nuff said. Theres plenty to eat in this town next show. How ’bout some Texas De Brazil?

Tomorrow is the final day of the show and will be non-stop until we leave for the airport. Time to get home and have a small break from shows until the Philly show in September. I hope to see some of you there!

 

 

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East Coast National Aug. 2013 Day 1 & 2

Just 2 weeks removed from the National in Chicago, the East Coast National is like a mini national…on the east coast. The show is located in White Plains, NY which is convenient if you fly into White Plains, not so much if you fly into LaGuardia. The grading team flew into LaGuardia,

After an hour or so car ride, we arrived at the Westchester County Center Thursday afternoon already facing a mound of waiting cards. It is nice to be busy right off the bat. We were grading before a number of dealers were setup.

Thursday is the shortest day as far as show hours but longest day as far as our hours. I was up by 4am and in the air by 7. I used to be able to sleep anywhere and anytime. Now, I can’t even sleep on a plane. I’m getting old. We were non-stop grading until the closing of the show at 8pm. Then we faced more grading for another hour or so after that.

Apparently, the most exciting thing at the show Thursday night was an attempted theft. Well, it was a theft, but the crook was caught and the cards returned. Theft has always been a problem at shows and not just card shows. I remember losing things when setup at comic cons, toy shows and flea markets. The problem however, has gotten worse in recent years. It seems like every show I get a note about a stolen card to look for. The Philly show has had some pretty big swipes. The National this year had several I heard about and many more I’m sure I didn’t hear about. At least one ’52 Topps Mantle was lifted. I wish I had the answer for dealers but I’m not sure you can be anywhere near 100% secure. So many people in and out of a show, and from every direction. All you can do is take precautions and help your neighbor-dealers by keeping an eye out. Display case alarms and side guards help deter quick grabs but from what I read on about the Thursday theft, the card-burglar snatched the cards from the dealer. Hard to prevent that. When I was a pawnbroker, we had an important rule; only one item out of the display case at a time.

A Twitter follower asked me during the day Friday if I had been on the floor at all and what was the vintage to modern ratio. I told him that I’ve only left the booth to pee. I’m hoping Sunday to get a few minutes to shop the floor.

Friday ended with a bang and plenty to grade into the night. We were cut off from doing same day turnaround pretty early in the day. Saturday should start off pretty fresh and open for customers. I will be Tweeting from behind the grading curtain and sharing images of cards. Follow me at: @broomewithaview.

 

 

 

 

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Cartoon book of the day

Seasons at the New Yorker

Today’s book isn’t exactly a cartoon book. It is a cartoon related book, and a scarce book at that.

The title is Season at the New Yorker – Six Decades of Cover Art. The book was published for a show by the National Academy of Design in 1984.

The book doesn’t feature select covers of the New Yorker, it features images of the actual original art used for covers. Sine many of the covers over the years were by New Yorker cartoonist, there are some great examples of art from some of the best cartoonists of the magazine.

This is one of those rare books that I never get burned out on. Each time I revisit this book I get something new. Maybe it is the mood I am in when looking through the book that dictates what I see and what I get from the many different styles of art.

The book is big enough to see the wonderful details in each work of art. At 13.1 x 9.8” and over 3 pounds, it is what I would call a “coffee table” book.

Just some of the artists represented are: Charles Addams, Charles Martin, Peter Arno, Perry Barlow, Charles Saxon, Ronald Searle, Saul Steinberg and James Stevenson. Nice class of cartoonists to be a part of.

Finding a copy isn’t impossible and some of the bigger websites like eBay and Amazon will have a few copies.

If you are a fan of cartoons of the New Yorker, this book is a must-have for your collection. I stumbled onto this book at our local used bookstore and I consider myself lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Friday Blog Goodness – Cards with glue, Toronto Card Expo and antiques this week…

The card show season has slowed down and I can now update the blog on Friday evenings. This edition ended up being an early Saturday release but welcome anyway and here we go…

Toronto Sports Card Expo

The twice a year show in Toronto is known for hockey cards. The show is billed as the largest hockey card show in North America.

I think they are selling the show short. Of course it is hockey heavy, it’s Canada. But there is more than hockey to be found at the show. Vintage and pre-war baseball, for example, has a nice showing at the show with a nice mix of Canadian and US dealers selling everything from autos to wax and even beef jerky. That guy rocks, by the way.

The May Expo show was the third appearance for Beckett since we started setting up again after a 10 year absence. The decade away from the Great White North was in part due to logistics of traveling to another country. There were plenty of shows in the US for us already and that made it easy to talk ourselves out of doing a show in Canada. We also setup and slabbed cards on-site at the Toronto Expo 10 years ago. BGS only slabs on-site at the National now and offer our on-site services of Raw Card Review and Graded Card Review at all other shows. That means we can take a tenth of the staff and a truck less of equipment to smaller shows making the Toronto show much more do-able.

The May show suffered from perfect weather. It was blue sky and 70 degrees (20 for you Canadians). Sounds great, and it is but not when it isn’t the norm for the area and you have a card show. The casual collector may opt for being outside with the family instead of going to a card show inside a windowless building all day. Who can blame them?

Just like the previous two shows, this show did not disappoint for us. Grading had a great turnout despite the thinner than usual crowd.

I thought we graded all the Gretzky RCs already but I had the privilege of grading more! Surprisingly, out of all the Gretzky cards, I only saw one fake which is a much lower percentage than back at the home office.

I wanted to get a Patrick Roy autograph but time is always scarce for the grading team. Roy was setup directly across from the Beckett booth. The line to get his autograph was very long and the photo op line was as well. Surprising to me since an auto set you back $180.00. I didn’t think I was going to get the auto but I did get to get a signed 8×10 with the help of another Becketteer. (Thanks Bill.)

The former baseball players like Fergie Jenkins and Goose Gossage were staying at our hotel but the long days grading left me too tired to even talk to those guys.

All in all, a great show again for us and nearly no problems.

Is the Toronto show for you? If you are a Canadian, it’s a no-brainer. It is a fun show where the card manufacturers are there giving away stuff and an awesome selection of dealers.

If you are from the US, you should try the show at least once. The cost to go can be reasonable if you use sites like Priceline or if you are close enough to drive. Remember, you must have a valid passport in order to go. There is also customs to deal with if you are taking cards and other stuff to sell at the show. I also recommend going to your local bank and ordering some Canadian currency before you go. It will be cheaper and it is good to have some on hand for deals where US won’t buy it. You don’t have to get a lot to get started. Definitely don’t get more than you think you will spend at the show. Your local US bank probably won’t take coinage when you come back. Mine won’t. Every time I do the show, I end up buying junk at the airport trying to use up my Loonies and Toonies (One and two dollar coins). I still end up with coins at home. I think there is an ashtray that is holding 7 or 8 dollars Canadian on my desk right now.

Glue on the back of a card

I posted a picture of the back of a 1954 Bowman card on Twitter earlier this week. The card was damaged from glue and the remnants of paper from an album. Some of the surface was pulled away. I asked how bad is the grade of a card with glue on the back and can it be removed?

Let’s start with how bad glue is when talking about the grade of a card. If there is glue residue that is light, a card can be in the VG range provided the stain is light. If there is glue that has discolored and stained the stock or there is evidence of removal from an album such as paper stuck to the glue, the grade is going to be in the 1.5 to 2 range at best. Missing surface is serious damage and will put the card in the poor or 1 grade range.

What if you have a card that is either still glued to the album or is removed and only has glue residue on the back? Do you try to remove the card from the album or the glue from the card surface?

The short answer is maybe.

The decision to attempt to remove a card should be based on an educated guess as to what type of glue was used and the type of card stock. A T206 glued to what appears to be a contemporary album is a good candidate for attempting to remove the card via means like soaking. The stock of the card will most likely withstand a proper and careful soaking and the glue will most likely be a water soluble paste. Many pre-war cards can take a soaking if done properly. Newer cards cannot.

When I was in junior high, I had a beat up W516 Walter Johnson strip card I had bought at a local motel card show. It had rounded corners and was a dark grey from years of being handled.

We traded cards at school and I had that card in a top loader in my back pocket. I also had a 1975 Topps Gary Carter rookie card in a top loader in the same pocket. I forgot about the cards when I got home. The jeans were washed the next day with the cards in the back pocket. My mother found them and handed them to me. The carter was first and I could see it was a goner. I removed the card from the top loader and most of the surface stayed with the plastic. The card was a total loss. Stupid me.

I hesitated before looking at the Johnson. This was BE (before eBay) so replacing that card was not going to be easy. I looked at the card and I was shocked. It looked brand new. I took it out of the top loader and the card was as clean as the day it was printed. It had been perfectly laundered! It still had completely rounded corners but the stock looked fake. It was clean and bright and the ink colors popped. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. A card just barely older than me was destroyed while a card from the year my great grandfather could drink not only survived but it was clean!

How can you be sure the card you have can be soaked? Find a common card from the same set and test it. A cheap common from the set won’t break your heart when you screw it up. Those 10 beautiful cards on an album page that are now in pieces after a bad soaking will break your heart.

Is soaking altering the card? Some say no while others argue anything done to a card is an alteration. My stance is if you are not adding to or taking away from an original card, it is not altering. If you are using water to remove a foreign substance from a card, you aren’t altering or changing the card. Trim an edge? Altering. Erase print or dirt? Altering. Using a chemical to change the appearance of a card? Altering. Rebuilding a missing corner? Altering. Soaking a card in water to remove glue that was added to a card? Not altering in my opinion.

Soaking isn’t quite as simple as I have made it sound but it can be done using only water. I do not want to make this a primer on how to soak cards but I do want to let collectors know that it can be done and some of the precautions to take before attempting such a job.

A photograph or a postcard with a real photo should never be soaked. I have an album that belonged to a player who played for Philly in the 1930s. There are beautiful single player photos in the album that are signed that look like cards. I would love to soak these out but I know I can’t without damaging them. The album was crumbling so I did cut the pages down to around each photo leaving the paper on the backs of the photos. That is how they will most likely stay.

Not only will the photos not take water but the fountain pen signatures will run off the surfaces. They are done in that beautiful blue/black ink like Parker Quink that looks so good. Still bold. I would probably cry if I ruined those autographs.

I have had luck with cards into the 1950s. New cards seem to be too risky. No matter the card, there are risks but modern cards are for sure high risk.

Experimenting can be fun. The first cards I ever tried soaking was a complete set of 1960s Cuban revolution cards pasted in a crumbling album. The cards came out perfect but only after hours of work and a great deal of sweat and stress. I messed up only one card. I was really lucky for being my first time. It was an experiment and I knew I may end up ruining the entire set.

The two worlds of collectibles

Today is my grandfather’s birthday and I gave him a call giving my wishes. As always, we converse about a number of topics. One topic we have in common is antiques and collectibles. Now, this is a man with 60-plus years experience in antiques and he was one of my collectibles mentors.

He recently opened a booth at an antique store local to him. It has been a few years since he has had a booth anywhere selling or buying. He specializes in what I call “real antiques.” What the hell is a “real antique?” I can’t come up with a great sounding definition but let’s say it is everything else besides cards, comics, toys and coins for example. He deals with things like furniture and barber chairs and tools and kitchen items. He’s done advertising and early 20th century. It’s really hard to list the items. It’s really more like a category. I think of it as the show American Pickers. They deal in pretty much everything old, except of collectibles like what I deal in.

What I deal in I can list. Items like trading cards, coins, comics, comic art, fountain pens and toys. That is pretty easy to describe.

We talked about trends and he mentioned the show American Pickers. He said people are buying everything that’s rusted. The rustier the better my grandfather said. That is when it hit me; I come from a different world than he does.

My world has three words that describe the items I am into. Those words are CONDITION, CONDITION, CONDITION. Condition is everything. You have a card that is mint? That’s great but I’m looking for Gem Mint and it needs to be professionally graded. That silver dollar is MS-69? That’s almost perfect. I will have to upgrade to MS-70 when I can.

If I have a comic with a chipped off corner, that will bug the crap out of me until I sell it. Off-centered card? Forget it. It better be a pre-war card if it isn’t near mint or better.

His world doesn’t care about condition. I can’t believe I even said that. Who doesn’t care about condition?

So he is telling me the rustier the better. Who is telling him that? I see that show and those guys are pulling out a bicycle that is buried in a toothless mans front yard. I am thinking what a piece of crap; you got any baseball cards inside where it’s dry?

The Picker guys are dry humping each other trying be the one to buy this hunk of junk.

Let’s go hit eBay and find one of those that still looks like an actual bike.

But I am told by my grandfather that rust is in. Rust sells.

I have spent my entire adult life scrutinizing the physical condition of pieces of cardboard through a loupe. To think that there are people out there that collect “collectibles” that would rather have something run over by a truck just doesn’t compute in my head. But I think I’m starting to get that now. I now realize there are two different worlds of collectors. One group is all about condition and the other that is wrong.

No, the other group isn’t wrong. They want old. They want their item to look the part. They do not care about perfect condition. They want something that has lived. Someone from the rust group might say If I’m hanging a ‘47 Edsel bumper over my fireplace, I want it to look like it’s been living in hell for 70 years. I don’t want people to see a repro, I want them to see the real deal, decomposition and all.

Understanding the difference in the two groups of collectors helps me when I am out buying stuff. I think I can appreciate the beauty in an antique that has stood the test of time and it looks it. That there is beauty in the journey and a piece that looks authentic can takes us back to a place when times were better. That there is something to a barber chair pulled from a trash heap that still has the scars of the many feet that rubbed the foot rest. The worn out seat that held so many first haircuts. The rust that says I stood as a monument against the passage of time.

Maybe the beauty is in the journey, not the preservation of the object.

Nah, it’s still junk. I’ll hold out for Near-Mint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Blackwing Hacking

I ordered a dozen of Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils from Jetpens.com. I have no connection to Jet Pens or Palomino. I chose Jet Pens only because they offer free shipping for orders over $25.00.
I also ordered a pack of the pink replacement erasers. Do they make a difference? Probably not but they do make the pencils look an awful lot like the original Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils.
I also bought a Kum double sharpener that comes in a plastic can and has a cap to seal up the holes. This appears to be a great travel sharpener. It is airplane friendly for sure.
The last item I bought was Tombow brand pencil caps. I have never used these before but a pack of 5 for under $2.00, why not. I have to say, these are perfect for carrying a Blackwing in your pocket.
I am trying out a few other pencils next week but I have to say, after running a Palomino Blackwing 602 to the nub, I think I have found my regular cartooning pencil for now. I did buy a few more original Blackwing 602 pencils but I just can’t stomach the use of them, not even for a New Yorker cartoon rough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signed copies now available!

Palomino Pencils, Day Five

Time for a quick day at the show and then it’s off to the airport and fly home to Texas.
Standard equipment for traveling through an airport in a big city is a small clipboard, note cards and a pen like a Sharpie. Airports are a great place for autographs. Celebrities, musicians and athletes have to fly just like the rest of us. There’s no “secret” celebrity airline unless you are the president.
In fact, this particular New York airport has been a pretty good autograph spot already. I once met hockey Hall of Famer Brett Hull while standing in line waiting to go through security.
Luckily, we know this terminal well and it is small. Most food choices are before security. Poor planning on the part of the airport, but it makes it easier spotting people for autographs.
Through security but after a walk, we come up empty handed. No autographs are to be had. We thought there was at least one former Major Leaguer from the show that could be on a flight in our terminal, but he wasn’t.
I spend some time reading and drawing. I am running out of test pencil. By the time we are in Texas again, I will be a point and a ferrule.

Counterfeit Alert

An unusual counterfeit being presented today. It is of a card that many collectors today may be unfamiliar with. It is a card that is what we call a hand cut card, meaning the card was meant to be cut from a panel or box or strip.
This Musial card is from 1955 and was one of 6 cards found on the lid of a Rawlings glove box. The cards were meant to be cut from the box lid and each other.
The counterfeiter went to great lengths on this example, hand cutting the card in an apparent sloppy manner. At first glance, this is a convincing fake.
What are the elements that give this fake away?
 The first piece of evidence is the stock itself. The cardboard used is too thick. It is also not old enough to be correct. Cardboard, like paper can be dated to an approximate age based on known manufacturing techniques.
Being a hand cut card, getting a good weight to compare to a real card is difficult. This is an instance where weight will not be a factor in determining the authenticity of the card.
The second piece of evidence is the printing itself. The ink and the manner in which the ink is arraigned on the stock is what we find with a laser printer and not a photoengraved image.
In hand, the card is easily detected by an experienced collector but in an auction online, there is really no way to tell until you have made the deal and the card is shipped to you.
But it isn’t too late. As a buyer, you have a timeframe to dispute the purchase. If you pay using Paypal through eBay, you are protected. If you use a credit card, you are protected when making purchases online on other sites. The key is the ability to detect the fake as soon as you get it, not weeks or months later. I once talked with a collector that had an obvious fake card. When I told him it was not good, I asked when and where he bought it. His response was he bought it on eBay a year, maybe two years ago. His time of action had long passed.
Get yourself a good loupe and learn how cards look. This is your best defense. I will post in the new future about loupes.

Palomino Pencils, Day Four

Days are busy but I did spend some time drawing in the hotel room late at night after grading/labeling in the room.
The test Blackwing I am using is starting to show the use. I’ve carried it constantly since I received it. There are dings in the finish and the gold is disappearing from the lettering. Surprisingly the ferrule looks perfect. The eraser is holding up. Not liking the standard erasers that come with the pencil. I am used to using a stand-alone plastic eraser and I’m sure this is the reason for my bias.
One thing I have noticed is that the pencil lead has not been internally broken once in this particular test pencil. I wish I could say that for many other pencils I have used. Even the regular Palomino Blackwing black pencil I tested had a break in the lead.
This 602 has sharpened with no problems. I’ve used 4 different types of sharpeners making different tips and shapes and this pencil has taken them all like a champ. The tip I like the best is a shorter tip like you use on a softer lead pencil. The Kum dual sharpeners are good for this type of point. I guess you would actually call it a medium point since it appears to be in-between the short tip of a color pencil and the long point like you get with an El Casco sharpener where the woodcase and lead are sharpened separately from each other.

And I get closer and closer to the ferrule.

Palomino Pencils, Day Three

I continue to use the Palomino Blackwing 602 for daily use. I left for Long Island this afternoon for the card show at Hofstra University. Once aboard the 737, I got out my sketchbook, iPod, a sharpener and a Blackwing pencil.
The pencil is what I am looking for. Although additional sharpening is the result, I can vary the pressure and get the lines I’m looking for when roughing cartoons. I can eliminate a few other pencils of different hardness degrees I carry.
I spend over half of the flight drawing. I get a remark from a fellow passenger that my Blackwing is “An interesting looking pencil, like a little paint brush.”
The ferrule does look somewhat like a paintbrush with the white eraser. My next dozen will be with the pink erasers.
This test Blackwing is getting shorter. Days are numbered and I may make it through the weekend in New York but that will be it. Although this is a short trip, I am hoping to get to get some drawing and writing done at night in the hotel room. Card show trips are usually so busy, the only drawing is done on the plane. That’s OK. That means the shows are busy and there are more cards than we graders can look at in such a short period.

The life cycle of a pencil

 

“The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser – in case you thought optimism was dead.”

–          Robert Brault

I found the little pencil in the photo in one of several boxes of random pencils I have. My first thought upon seeing this near-death writing utensil was to toss it into the can under my drawing table. Once I picked it up but before I could throw it towards the can, I paused. I thought about what this pencil did, or didn’t do it its “life.”

A pencil represents us more than I had ever thought before. In full disclosure, I actually never sat and contemplated the life of a pencil before, but for some reason I did with this little fella.

Its ancestral origins are somewhat a mystery. Somewhere long ago the pencil as we know it began. Many generations of the pencil have come and gone over hundreds of years. Who or what really created the first pencil? We will never know. And since that beginning, an evolution has occurred. Casings and graphite cores have rounded. They have been painted and lacquered. An eraser has been added and changed and even been made adjustable. Somewhere the branch split and the tree started a line of mechanical pencils.

Some pencils have changed the course of history. Others never left the maker. Some have caused suffering and some have saved lives. They have been to the moon and to the depths of the sea.

What about this particular pencil? Where did it come from? I do not remember this pencil. It is made from recycled newspapers and is scented pineapple. The rest of its name has been shredded in a sharpener. Its concentric rings of newspapers in its core are visually appealing. While it doesn’t sharpen well in my electric sharpener, it makes a fantastic point in a hand sharpener. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t buy a scented pencil. I will say it was gifted, or left by someone.

What did this pencil accomplish in its life from 7 inches down to its ferrule? Was its life wasted prematurely by my children who enjoy sharpening pencils just to watch them disappear?

Whatever it’s past, the purpose of the pencil’s existence is to do something, to leave a mark. The pencil has a reason for being here, to create something or tell a story.

But the pencil is different from us in some ways. The pencil cannot think. It cannot create. I cannot do what Peter Arno did if I used his pencil. The pencil holds no power in and of itself. It cannot create on it’s on. An artist can create his or her magic with anything available at hand.

The pencil is to serve man. Some would say in the same way man serves God. It is an outlet for our thoughts and desires.

As an artist and I’m sure the same for a writer, when you have a favorite pencil, it becomes a constant companion. You work in harmony producing, writing, drawing, taking notes and capturing thoughts. Never do you pause each time you re-point the pencil. You continue on, sharpening and leaving a mark. It isn’t until you get to the point where you cannot hold the pencil do you start to think about the day you cannot use this pencil anymore. I have a crutch for this, a pencil extender. It allows a little more time before the inevitable.

The feeling of loss is much worse when you discover the nub you hold in your hand is the last of his kind. His particular lineage has been discontinued by the maker. Always “innovating” and making changes. Some lines sell better than others. Its been said before, when you find an art supply you like, buy all you can for one day it will be discontinued. Charles Schulz loved a particular steel nib and upon learning it was to be killed off, he ordered the remaining stock.

Where does the pencil go once it outlives its usefulness? Some pencils are made from recycled material. Some are made to be recycled. There is even a pencil now that has a sead inside of it so when the time comes and the pencil is too short to produce, you place it it dirt, water it and it sprouts. This pencil is, in a way, reincarnated as a plant. Not nearly as useful when drawing, unless the plant is a cedar tree. And you have a pencil factory.

There’s a great chance that my writers block has gotten to me this time and I just spent time thinking too much about a dead pencil.

That was the sound of the nub hitting the can from across my room.