Rainbow grail
By Dr. Ryan D. Evans, STLE President | TLT President's Report April 2023
Engaging with STLE can help you reach a wide range of personal and professional goals.
A portion of the Cleveland Browns’ Nick Chubb rainbow I have collected to this point.
I restarted a guilty pleasure during the COVID-19 pandemic—collecting sports cards. It is hard to get solid marketing numbers on an industry that relies on so many cash transactions, but estimates put the total sports card collectibles market size between $5-15 billion per year. As with any hobby, sports cards collecting has its own jargon. The community of sports cards collectors refers to their fun as “the hobby.” To open a new box or pack of sports cards is to “rip,” and finding an interesting card is to “pull” a “hit.” By the way, a new box or unopened pack of cards is called “wax.” Some collectors focus on assembling full sets of all player cards each year. Others seek to own every color variation of a single player card, the collection of which is referred to as a “rainbow.” That one card you must locate, pursue and then obtain at all costs to complete a rainbow is a “grail” card.
When I was eight years old, I started collecting sports cards. You could buy wax packs for 35 cents each. My grail was a 1986 Topps football Bernie Kosar rookie card—the Cleveland Browns American football team quarterback. Believe it or not, the Browns were pretty good back then. I stepped away from the hobby during my young adult years to raise my children, but in 2020, I entered the cards market again. The hobby had changed quite a bit. Prices for cards were much higher than I remembered. Instead of buying retail wax and building complete sets, I decided to collect a Nick Chubb rainbow from the 2022 Panini Prestige football set. Nick Chubb is my favorite current Browns player, and there are a few dozen color variations of the same card in this new set. See the photo for a portion of the rainbow that I have collected to this point.
The grail in my pursuit of my Nick Chubb rainbow from that 2022 Prestige set is a “black premium” card, of which there is only one produced in the world (in hobby jargon, called a “one-of-one”). Talk about the thrill of the hunt! A collector can conduct their quest by buying and selling cards in online marketplaces like eBay, ripping wax or visiting in-person local card shops or card shows. eBay is a virtual forum that connects buyers and sellers for a fee. Wax can be bought at retail stores, but the odds of getting what you want are astronomically poor. Card shops and shows add a human element, where perhaps a seller might not have the grail you are seeking but can point you to someone else who may have it.
What does any of this have to do with tribology and lubrication engineering? I would argue that there are similarities between the hobby and STLE. The hobby has its own jargon, and so do STLE members. One might hear specialist references to viscosity index, elastohydrodynamic lubrication, Hertz contact stresses, VOCs and pour points at STLE meetings. The hobby hosts virtual platforms for connecting buying and selling collectors all over the world. STLE hosts virtual webinars, STLE Industry Insights, a new Learning Management System (LMS) and even online certification exams for our community. The hobby has an in-person national convention each year, which is called “The National” and is hosted in Chicago (Rosemont), Ill., in July 2023. STLE hosts an in-person Annual Meeting each spring, which will be held in Long Beach, Calif., May 21-25. The hobby has local card shows in rented venues in each town across the country throughout the year where dealers and collectors can trade. STLE has local sections organized by geographical proximity across the country for members to gather and network. The hobby has buyers and sellers, and STLE also has buyers (researchers, customers, end-users, education candidates) and sellers (corporate members, education and content providers).
I encourage you to intentionally define your professional rainbow grail. I want that one-of-one black premium Nick Chubb card badly, but I am pursuing certain grails professionally in my day job. STLE is a great forum to help me connect the right networks and content to obtain those goals. I have a doctorate degree, but not an STLE Certified Lubrication Specialist™ (CLS) certification. What if I set a goal to obtain that CLS as a personal and professional grail, whether my employer requires it or not? Reaching the STLE presidency was a professional grail, but that is not the end of my quest as a volunteer. Membership in STLE offers many rainbow variations of educational content, networking and advertising opportunities, publication venues, certifications and business relationships. Best of luck in chasing your own professional rainbow grails, and please engage STLE to help you along the way!
Dr. Ryan Evans is director of R&D at The Timken Co. in North Canton, Ohio. You can reach him at ryan.evans@timken.com.