Have really enjoyed reading everyone's recaps so thought I would add my own.
I've been to the last 4 national's and have always thought it would be super fun to be a "dealer" and set up a table. So this year after deciding to sell some of my stuff, I reached out to some dealers a couple weeks before show time to see about sub leasing a table. Larrie Dean was nice enough to say yes and I was off to the races.
Can't say enough about how great Larrie and his wife are and I really enjoyed hanging with them and talking shop during the show. Larrie's been setting up for years and has a sizable area which includes dealers Scott Connor, Bill Yano and Joe Yander - all of which are good dudes that are motivated to be there and make deals. I learned a little something from each one of them during the 4 days and highly recommend you search them out your next go around.
Here's some
pros and cons about being a dealer:
Pros: Loved meeting and talking to each collector as they came by my area. I would always ask what was on their hit list for the show and that would get us started on mostly lengthy conversations about what they collect and their experiences at the show. I was able to meet a ton of guys from Net54 and put faces to names/handles. I also had great conversations with the dealers at tables around me and got to know guys like Clay Sigg who was stationed across from me. Clay wrote an amazing book called
Hometown Heroes: The Single Franchise Baseball Stars of the 20th Century. He was at the show promoting and selling the book. Clay played college baseball and we had a great conversation around what it was like being scouted and trying out for a pro team back in the 70's.
The camaraderie among dealers was cool to see as they would watch out for each other's tables during restroom/food breaks and help answer questions that came up from various collectors. Mid way through the show I caught the modern bug and got some really valuable help from a couple modern dealers around me on prices and what to look for as I made a couple purchases on the shiny stuff.
I ended up selling a dozen or so cards but two really stood out. There was a really nice guy from Texas that happened to be a border patrol officer. He came by on Wednesday to look at my N162 Cap Anson. It was on his wish list but he didn't end pulling the trigger. Too many other cards to see at that point. But we ended up talking a lot about his job and as you can imagine he had some cool stories to tell. He came back again on Thursday and again on Friday to look at the card. This was a big decision, and finally on Saturday he was ready. He literally caught me as I was packing up to catch my flight home Saturday afternoon and he bought the card as we walked out the front door to my cab. The other sale was to a guy from St. Louis (he was wearing a Cardinals jersey) who was there with his wife. He was looking for two more 48 Leaf cards to complete his set. He needed a low grade Paige card and I just happened to have one. We talked for awhile and negotiated on price and finally the card was his. He was so damn happy to have that card. And even though I was a little sad to see it go, it was great to see how much he loved it. I saw him later walking around with the card in his hand and he said he just couldn't put it away, that he still couldn't believe he found it.
Like someone else said seeing the young kids at the show was great to see. The hobby is alive and well and the modern stuff is a driving a ton of money, I bet many multiples more than vintage.
Cons:
As a dealer you miss out a little on seeing all the stuff for sale as you're busy manning your booth and talking to potential customers. Since I was solo and didn't want to burden my booth mates with watching my stuff, I didn't get to get around the room like I normally would. I was able to lock my case and sneak away a couple times during slow periods to check stuff out. But for the most part I stuck close to the booth. Talking about slow periods, it does get a little boring standing around waiting. Anyone that's worked a trade show knows what I'm talking about. There was one point when I was getting a little punchy and found a kid a couple rows over and we started playing catch with a foam baseball.
Your feet take some serious punishment. My dogs were really barking, standing on hard concrete for 5 days straight days.
Well as you can see the pros outweigh the cons by a long shot so anyone thinking of trying your hand at "dealing" I would highly recommend the experience.