Friday @ Boston Show

RayBShotz

Just got back!

Although lightly attended (Great for the collector; not so great for the dealers) I thought the Boston Show was smartly laid out with a good cross section of graded and raw material.
Was fortunate to get to SetBuilders Table first this time and scooped up some nice raw material typical to Joe T. and Bob's usual standards. These two are top shelf and nice guys to boot.

When that West Coast Wind blew in it brought Royalty with it! I was fortunate enough to spend a good part of the day with The King!
King Kellogg (Larry Emard) and I kicked the can for quite a while. Class Act. Just as you thought you were thoroughly infected with 3D fever; be aware of the coming of "Disco"! Stay tuned.

Thanks Larry. Had a great time.

Was fortunate enough also to find an "alternate entrance" to the Show to beat the tenacious Jeff Gobin to those 69' raw cards at SetBuilders. Better luck next time Jeff :-)

Seriously Jeff is another one of the 69' Good Guys of which there are many. Good to see you again.

Overall 3 stars. I did overhear someone mentioned that the show has sort of a "Fort" feel. (Fort Washington).
I enjoyed the day. I would guess this sow would garner heavier traffic on Saturday.
RayB69Topps

packCollector

found some nice philly football cards. overall not that many packs which I was hoping to find some ungraded packs. shoebox had some nice graded packs and I did get teased with a 68 topps plak gai 8 pack from sportscards plus. I thought 4k was a little steep even though I might never see another. maybe sunday? a nicve show with a lot of knowledgable collectors.

EOMINT

I thought the show was terrible, virtually zero high end stuff whatsoever...other than the National I think I may stop going to shows altogether, just seems to be a waste of time since any time any dealer has something special they ebay it or put it in an auction.

EO

packCollector

HI EO

Wish I knew you were going to be there , I could have given you the 72's in person. about the shoe, I kind of know where you are coming from. There was high end stuff from shoebox and 707, but there prices are the same as the catalog or their web sites so there isn't much help. I do like to look a the cards in person though. I will say I had $2500 in my pocket and was willing to spend a lot more but came home with$2300, oh h well still fun to be in the same room with other collectors once and a while which made it worth it for me.

B93

I attended the show Friday and pretty much had the place to myself, well maybe sharing it with 200-300 others. Anyway, for better or worse (definitely better) the Shriners show is much like the Tristar shows (2X/yr) in the Boston area - most of the same dealers and since Tristar was just here in September, the dealers had the pretty much the same inventory of cards. Shriners did have 707 and Champs though and is still the best show in the Boston area. I was hoping for more graded vintage hockey and although Gerry's and Len Potti were there I missed AJ's not being there.
Simon

Buccaneer

<< <i>68 topps plak gai 8 pack >>



What is that specifically and what in 1968 would command $4k??

Can someone tell me where next year's National will be held? Last one I went to was the 1984 show.

aro13

The National is in Cleveland in 2004

Machodoc

The "Plak" was a little plastic bust of a player that had to be put together much like a model kit. It also looked like a model kit since the pieces were on those plastic "trees" that model parts are attached to. The concept was a bust (pun intended) and never repeated. I remember them and actually bought a couple but even though I loved models and cards as a kid I never saw the point. Maybe I was a good test case since if Topps couldn't sell them to kids who loved models, baseball, and cards, then it was probably doomed to fail...

qualitycards

BUCC - Here is a picture of an unopened pack of the plaks...jay
1968 Test issue Topps Plaks GAI-8

ChrisKK

I went through the show on Friday. I didn't spend as much time as I thought I would. It was the typical Boston show. A good representation of memorabilia, non-sports and plenty of raw cards. I did notice that there was not a large amount of high grade, graded cards and was disappointed with the raw cards available. Don't get me wrong there was enough NM cards to go around but I didn't see much that would be worth the risk of submission (for me, in the sets I am actively working on). In talking with some vendors I was told "if it is worth grading you won't find it here" and "you are wasting your time if you are looking for raw mint cards" comments take that were discouraging and just shortened my time on the floor. I think for my quest of a 1970 set in MINT condition I will be relegated to eBay and vendors with already graded cards. I was able to fill some holes in my raw sets.

Hope others had a better show than me.
ChrisKK

gameusedhoop

I went Sunday morning and was quite disappointed as usual. As stated earlier most of the dealers had the same inventory as they did at the Tri-Star show. My only purchase was a 1965 Tiant Rookie in a PSA 8. Back to the Ebay search.

mikeschmidt

<< <i>The "Plak" was a little plastic bust of a player that had to be put together much like a model kit. It also looked like a model kit since the pieces were on those plastic "trees" that model parts are attached to. The concept was a bust (pun intended) and never repeated. I remember them and actually bought a couple but even though I loved models and cards as a kid I never saw the point. Maybe I was a good test case since if Topps couldn't sell them to kids who loved models, baseball, and cards, then it was probably doomed to fail... >>




With the addendum that the checklist(s) that accompany the plaks, one per pack, are one of the absolute nicest, neatest checklists ever to be produced. Picture of the player's face next to their name, nice contrasting borders. VERY cool stuff. Price-wise, though, only for the faint of heart.

Hubcap

The show was a bust. For many reasons. The autographs guests were very weak since the Club has this myth that autograph guests take money off the show floor. Mr. Carvalho still is living in the past and he thinks that this show should be a good old fashioned vintage card and memorabilia show. (Bill, can you say EBAY??????) I don't think you will see a lot of the national vintage card dealers back next year. They made no money. There was also very little walk in deals (Can you say EBAY????)

What a lot of collectors don't get to see is the dealer action that occurs on move in Friday morning. One vendor I noticed had 4 PSA 9 1954 Bowmans. On my second load in, they were gone. So were early 50's PSA 8s form the same vendor. I even bought a nice 1961 MAZ PSA 8 for my set prior to open. So that doesn't leave much to the collector once the show opens to the public. Most of the dealer buys do not get offered to the public at the show. They are for customers or online sales.

I also noticed a lot of vintage dealers with GAI graded cards. They were still there Friday night during load out. My opinion...GAI grade cards unless super high end, do not sell.

packCollector

Hubcap - you got it right. if you were looking for vintage graded cards, there were none outside of star cards. problem is, the dealers that had them wanted extremely high premiums compared to what they sell on ebay. I have no problem paying extra since I get to look at the card but 50% more that ebay is outragous for regularly traded 60's issues. also, most of the football cards i looked at that were graded didn't warrant a premium do to where they placed within the grade. i did find about 50 nice raw philly football cards from a non new england dealer. I did go through 4 full boxes to pull 50, though. I bought 1 graded card that i needed and paid a premium. I think most of the dealers with raw cards don't get it either. if you don't want to grade your cards, you can not sell them for a premium or equal to psa 8 + prices. I wasn't going to pay beckett plus for a mantle card ungraded. not worth the risk of trimming or that it won't grade out. if the card was sold reasonable, I might give it a shot. if you were looking for lower grade raw you probably had a blast. mixed reviews but still a much better way to spend a friday afternoonthan being at work IMO.

also got to view the pack run that will be in lelands next auction which was a positive.