My Turn: Random Thoughts From the National !
thedutymon
Posts: 4,323 ✭
Afternoon,
Hard to believe after months of anticipation that the National is over until Baltimore next year. Speaking of Baltimore, last year, my Boy's and myself's first National , we flew in Thurs and had Fri/Sat/ and Sun, although I was actually pretty much done after Sat, thought I needed more time this year. So this year decided that I wanted to experience the whole thing so arrived on Weds afternoon with reservations for the entire time through Sun. Found out all 5 days is just a bit too much, next year will be same as last year, Weds-Sat. We left Sat morning because I had accomplished everything I needed to do by Fri. afternoon.
1. Weds night was the Bomb for my purchasing !! Before I knew it, it was only 6:00 PM and I had spent thousands!!
2. Thursday day was also a fruitfull day and before I realized it I had spent a large part of the money that I had brought to spend. Including a Not planned bust of two 86 Fleer packs at BBCE Booth for $770.00. Its like the Peer pressure from High School, just gotta bust me one, then two !!!! Enjoyed the time spent watching Matt Miller and some others bust some then just had to do it, no Hits, but still a rush !!!
3. Thurs night was an awesome time with Matt Miller, Mike Kenez, Kirk Mr. Mint, Kirk BBCEmporium seeing if we could drink the Hilton Bar dry....Didn't manage, but tried...Thanks to Matt once again for your generosity, that's twice now and next year I Am buying some more!!!
4. Friday my son and I did the Chicago Hanck/Sears Tower/Downtown thing and then we went to the Net54 Dinner and party, it was not bad and I had a good time. Want to thank Kirk and Mike for making my Son feel part of the group, he enjoyed it even with some of the slow speaches, still said he had a good time.
5. We left Sat morning after breakfast for our 17 hour drive home.
Some thought on the Dealers:
1. 10 minutes after I walked in Weds night I hooked up with a John Wu at his table and over that night and the next day spent about $1400 with him. He had lots of nice 55 Bowman Baseball marked at 50% and we dickered to where I paid about 25-30% for the most part, Commons and Stars.
2. Most Dealers were there to deal, with a few exceptions of course.
3. I brought about $1.5K worth of stuff to try and do some trading. The first table I came to, about 3 tables in that I asked ended up trading for about 1/2 of it....Awesome!!! Most of the rest came home with me with the exception of a nice Trade I did for a SGC 1971 Bart Starr 8.5+ that was immediatly cracked out and went to PSA the next day and I am hoping for a MINT 9. I traded a 62 Topps Football SGC MINT 9 Team Card that was way overvalued at SMR $450 and had been in my store for months and was never going to sell and was too OC to ever cross over...So YeeHah!!!
4. I came across a Dealer that had some awesome Graded 62 Football I wanted but as soon as he started quoting Beckett I walked away, same with several other Dealers, and sometimes Becket with a premium added. I found most dealers had no problem working off SMR prices and then discounting from there, depending on how much money you spent.
5. My Favorite Laugh of the National was Peter Lalos of Champs & Bums who when I asked him what formula or guide were his Way OverPriced prices cards prices based on and he told me Straight Faced " I don't care what any Guide says I base my prices off what I paid for a Card ", So in otherwords, if you paid $200 for a Card that guides at $125, I should pay your asking price of $300 because you paid too much ?????? All most started laughing right there. But in his defense I did trade some Non Sport cards that I had nothing into for many hundreds of dollars of trade value and picked up a bunch of Way Overpriced 62 PSA Graded Football which are now in my Store at less than guide, about 1/2 his asking price !!! I never even went up to Levi's tables, why bother, I'm not buying anything from him anyway.
6. I found many different Dealers that wanted to SELL Cards and if the offer was reasonable then they sold. They outnumbered the Museum Display Sellers by about 5 to 1 IMO.
7. Had a Blast at the BBCE Booth as mentioned before.
8. Didn't get a chance to meet as many board members as I wanted, hope next year I can do better, and Scott I thought you were going to be at the NET54 for drinks Fri night and then couldn't find your number after....anyway......Next Year !!
9. I picked up two different Non Sport sets that I have been looking for years for and am in touch and getting some more from the same guy.
Overall it was a great time and can't wait til next Year !!
YeeHah
Neil
Hard to believe after months of anticipation that the National is over until Baltimore next year. Speaking of Baltimore, last year, my Boy's and myself's first National , we flew in Thurs and had Fri/Sat/ and Sun, although I was actually pretty much done after Sat, thought I needed more time this year. So this year decided that I wanted to experience the whole thing so arrived on Weds afternoon with reservations for the entire time through Sun. Found out all 5 days is just a bit too much, next year will be same as last year, Weds-Sat. We left Sat morning because I had accomplished everything I needed to do by Fri. afternoon.
1. Weds night was the Bomb for my purchasing !! Before I knew it, it was only 6:00 PM and I had spent thousands!!
2. Thursday day was also a fruitfull day and before I realized it I had spent a large part of the money that I had brought to spend. Including a Not planned bust of two 86 Fleer packs at BBCE Booth for $770.00. Its like the Peer pressure from High School, just gotta bust me one, then two !!!! Enjoyed the time spent watching Matt Miller and some others bust some then just had to do it, no Hits, but still a rush !!!
3. Thurs night was an awesome time with Matt Miller, Mike Kenez, Kirk Mr. Mint, Kirk BBCEmporium seeing if we could drink the Hilton Bar dry....Didn't manage, but tried...Thanks to Matt once again for your generosity, that's twice now and next year I Am buying some more!!!
4. Friday my son and I did the Chicago Hanck/Sears Tower/Downtown thing and then we went to the Net54 Dinner and party, it was not bad and I had a good time. Want to thank Kirk and Mike for making my Son feel part of the group, he enjoyed it even with some of the slow speaches, still said he had a good time.
5. We left Sat morning after breakfast for our 17 hour drive home.
Some thought on the Dealers:
1. 10 minutes after I walked in Weds night I hooked up with a John Wu at his table and over that night and the next day spent about $1400 with him. He had lots of nice 55 Bowman Baseball marked at 50% and we dickered to where I paid about 25-30% for the most part, Commons and Stars.
2. Most Dealers were there to deal, with a few exceptions of course.
3. I brought about $1.5K worth of stuff to try and do some trading. The first table I came to, about 3 tables in that I asked ended up trading for about 1/2 of it....Awesome!!! Most of the rest came home with me with the exception of a nice Trade I did for a SGC 1971 Bart Starr 8.5+ that was immediatly cracked out and went to PSA the next day and I am hoping for a MINT 9. I traded a 62 Topps Football SGC MINT 9 Team Card that was way overvalued at SMR $450 and had been in my store for months and was never going to sell and was too OC to ever cross over...So YeeHah!!!
4. I came across a Dealer that had some awesome Graded 62 Football I wanted but as soon as he started quoting Beckett I walked away, same with several other Dealers, and sometimes Becket with a premium added. I found most dealers had no problem working off SMR prices and then discounting from there, depending on how much money you spent.
5. My Favorite Laugh of the National was Peter Lalos of Champs & Bums who when I asked him what formula or guide were his Way OverPriced prices cards prices based on and he told me Straight Faced " I don't care what any Guide says I base my prices off what I paid for a Card ", So in otherwords, if you paid $200 for a Card that guides at $125, I should pay your asking price of $300 because you paid too much ?????? All most started laughing right there. But in his defense I did trade some Non Sport cards that I had nothing into for many hundreds of dollars of trade value and picked up a bunch of Way Overpriced 62 PSA Graded Football which are now in my Store at less than guide, about 1/2 his asking price !!! I never even went up to Levi's tables, why bother, I'm not buying anything from him anyway.
6. I found many different Dealers that wanted to SELL Cards and if the offer was reasonable then they sold. They outnumbered the Museum Display Sellers by about 5 to 1 IMO.
7. Had a Blast at the BBCE Booth as mentioned before.
8. Didn't get a chance to meet as many board members as I wanted, hope next year I can do better, and Scott I thought you were going to be at the NET54 for drinks Fri night and then couldn't find your number after....anyway......Next Year !!
9. I picked up two different Non Sport sets that I have been looking for years for and am in touch and getting some more from the same guy.
Overall it was a great time and can't wait til next Year !!
YeeHah
Neil
Actually Collect Non Sport, but am just so full of myself I post all over the place !!!!!!!
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Comments
Glad you had a great show!!!