I had a great time on Friday in my one day at the National. Since I have a wide variety of collecting interests, I was able to find plenty of stuff, and it was great to see and talk to so many people. I had a nice chat with Mike Peich and picked up six new T206s from him, bringing my Monster Number to 485. I also had a nice chat with Ed Hans, who was nice enough to give me a packet of hobby stuff from the 1970s, and I also talked to Scott Brockelman and Jay Miller at the adjacent table. Ed gave me a good deal on four T213s (three type 2, one type 3) to go with my various T206 back runs, and his partner Gary Nuchereno gave me a discount on a stack of 1970 and 1971 Topps I needed. From other dealers, I made progress on 1960, 1963, and 1967 Topps, and I completed my 1969 Topps set by getting the last three cards I needed (Mays, Mantle, and Reggie) for very reasonable prices. Working on those sets is just a fun thing that I've pretty much only done at shows over the past few years, but I'm close enough on 1970 and 1971 Topps that I'll probably just get the last few I need online.
I also had a nice visit with Ted Z, and with Doak Ewing of Rare Sportsfilms, from whom I got a couple of T205s and a T206 for another of my back runs (Maddox). Ted and Doak both had impressive displays of T206 rare backs. In addition, I caught up with several board members on the show floor: Jesse Arnott (pokeyplyr80), Steven (brass-rat), Justin Burleson (jburl), and jburl's friend Darren, who is not a member of the board but with whom I recently did a trade, brokered by Justin, involving some T211s and T210-8s. Steven, Justin, Darren and I had a fun conversation about T211s and related topics. That evening at the Net54 dinner I saw those three guys again, along with many other people, some of whom I've met before and some of whom I hadn't. In particular I had substantial conversations with Fred McKie (whiteymet) and Rich Klein, and shorter encounters with Dave Hornish (toppscat), Tom Boblitt (autograf), Leon, and numerous others. Lots of people had nice things to say about my hobby history posts, which is always encouraging. As others have said, the three speakers at the dinner were top-notch, and tonight I plan to post some material related to a question that was asked of the last speaker.
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