[Exhibitman]

You will have to truck pretty hard to get through it but there are some things you can do to maximize your time:

--Don't go anywhere there are carpeted aisles. Those are the corporate booth areas and there aren't any vintage cards for sale there.

--Don't submit on site grading or drop things off for grading.

--Purchase a VIP pass to get in earlier.

--Skip all auctioneer tables. Again, nothing for sale. Wait for the catalog.

--Unless something great screams at you from the table, give a table the once-over and quickly decide if it is worth looking at more in depth, then make a note of the booth number and move on. Circle back to those tables once you've made your initial pass.

--If you are well-acquainted with a dealer's inventory (as will be the case with certain nationally-known dealers with large Ebay stores, at least some of whom named their businesses after airplanes in Steve Miller songs), don't waste the time stopping at that table; you won't see anything new.

--Trust your first impressions of what a dealer has for sale. I roam the show for 4-5 days and my experience has been that perhaps 10%-20% of the show is pure crud, another 10%-20% is modern shiny crap or manufactured memorabilia that won't interest a vintage collector, another 10%-20% is vintage memorabilia that is interesting but of no use if you aren't a memorabilia guy, and another 10%-20% is devoted to sports other than baseball. Realistically, if your focus is prewar baseball it won't be worth your while even to stop at 1/3 to 2/3 of the tables.

--Don't get stuck at the mounds-o-crap type booths unless you have time to kill or see something really great on the top. Odds are that a table that is a mess is run by someone with no idea of what he has for sale and is a giant time suck. Come back to those if they seem worth exploring. Similarly, if a dealer tells you he doesn't know whether he has a type of item, walk away. If he doesn't know his inventory and gives you a box of crud to wade through, odds are you will waste a lot of time there. Again, if it looks interesting, maybe hit the table on a second pass.

--Have a 'litmus test' item from your want list but make it a broad category, like T206s or Old Judge baseball, and ask for it whenever a dealer asks if he can help you. It will be pretty easy to tell if the dealer has anything to do with that sort of material based on his response.

--Walk away, fast, from a table that has been left in care of a little kid or a frustrated wife. Nothing but misery awaits you there.

--Lunch is for wimps. Take a packet of nuts or a granola bar; don't waste time in line then sitting down sampling the 'cuisine' at the convention.

--Pee on your own time, not on show time.

As far as payment, cash is king. Don't expect many dealers to take anything except greenbacks or perhaps travelers checks.