Regrets from Nationals gone by

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Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

I'm sure that for any of us that have had the opportunity to attend the National, we may have regrets on not purchasing an item. My first National was in Cleveland in 1997. I enjoyed it completely. I felt like a kid in a candy store. My second one was a couple of years later in Atlanta. I found very little, but sold off a bunch of duplicates. At the Cleveland Show a dealer had a full display of S74 Silks including a few dozen issued by, I believe, RED SUN.

Unfortunately, he was busy with customers, and the silks were face down so I'm not sure if they even had ball players on the front. I made a mental note to stop back at his table later, but never found him again.

I know that in Lew Lipset's book, he mentions Old Mill, Turkey Red, and Helmar as brands that issued these premiums. Does anyone own or has anyone ever seen the Helmar or the Red Sun Silks? Thanks, Patrick

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Posted By: Keith O'Leary

Patrick, I've collected the S74 white silks with backs for 10 or so years. I know they are mentioned in Lipset's book, but I've never seen a Helmar back. I've owned 6 or 7 of the Red Sun backs, and see them infrequently. I've had other S74 collectors ask me about the Helmar backs also, they've had the same experience. As a side note, the Turkey Red blue back variation is another hard one to find. Keith

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Posted By: jay behrens

same experience here, I've never seen a Helmar back (wasn't aware of the Lipset listing) but have seen 2 or 3 Red Sun backs. Definately the best of the backs.

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Posted By: Anonymous

anonymous post deleted

Elliot

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Posted By: warshawlaw

My only regret from the three I've been to is not having enough money at the time to go for some of the bargains I saw. The best part of the National is the bargains. In 2000 at Anaheim there was a table in the back run anonymously by Superior where they were disposing of their rejects from acquisitions. Really blowing out great stuff. They had the entire end of the row and hundreds of boxes of cards marked at like 20% of retail, and they were bargaining down from there if you bought in bulk. Some of you probably remember it--you had to engage in a scrum to get through to the table. I was pulling out $80 cards and paying like $10 for them. Unfortunately, I did not have anywhere near the cash I could have used to really buy hard. Some dealers were spending thousands in cash on boxes of stuff culled from the piles. To give you some examples, I bought a nm-mt 1969 Gordie Howe card (a $50 card) ticketed at $15 and bought for $10, a couple of nice ex Obaks for $10 each, a Koufax Exhibit card for $4, etc. I was at the show all days and spent probably 80% of my time there at that one table.