I spoke to David Hunt the other day about his show, what happened with the Oaks show dealers, and the future of shows in the Philly area.
After we finished the initial cussing and screaming at each other: (J/K David is as classy as they come), he expressed a few very good points to me.
Though I may not completely agree with him on everything, I do see where he is coming from.
David stated that with his overhead and the cost of booths at his show, that he actually loses money. Though I believe him, I would say he may need to make some changes with how many staff he uses and whatever other overhead he has to get the cost down to the dealers.
He also mentioned that in today's market, you need both autographs and the vintage dealers for a successful show. I completely agree with this.
I did not agree with the upholding of not letting the dealers do his show if they did the Oaks but I was open minded to hear his reasoning. After all, he returned thousands of dollars worth of checks in hand so that took some strength. He stated he needed to protect his loyal dealers as the area cannot support 2 shows.
I think he maybe he should have just held out another year and the Oaks show probably would have folded. But that is just a guess on my part.
David did say he has lost about 10 quality vintage dealers and in doing so has lost many vintage collectors in attendance.
I have known David a long time and I know he would like to get the Philly show back to thriving again.
He also stated that everyone was welcome back to do it, I am the only dealer on the permanant barred list.
I don't have all of the answers and I am sure he would be open to friendly sensible suggestions but I sure would be interested in maybe giving it a try again in the future after some changes are made.
David also offers $200 tables but says only 3 dealers have taken advantage of these. I do not know where he has this row set up but it may be worth looking into.
I hope I touched on everything we spoke about and I did tell him that I really miss his February auctions in Exton, damn they were fun!
Please, everyone have a very Happy Holiday Season!
Dan Mckee