Sounds like a good show. Had the whole family in town this weekend - a rare occurrence these days - so had to stay close.

Chantilly
 

I was with my wife so I couldn’t be as casual. Best thing was a 1970 Bob Hayes glossy insert centered and unbubbled for $5. Completes a meaningless but sentimental set. Murder to find on eBay and even the 22 National. Worked on some 59s. Miss the days when this was in Richmond 15 minutes from my house and how they used to go into the 400s on autograph tickets.

Heard it was well attended, but it seemed more attendees were concerned with getting autographs.

I'd say the split is 70/30 there for the cards vs. autographs.

There is of course some spillover between the two.

Agreed! Henrico resident here and when I first moved to Richmond, the Tuff Stuff shows were in full swing and were glorious. I miss those days.

Being my first regional show attending in 4 years, I was very surprised at the lack of auction houses and grading companies there for what was mentioned to me as being a key vintage card show these days along with Philly, Strongsville, and Shriner’s. Those that were there seemed to have minimal foot traffic at their respective booths throughout the weekend. I have to agree the attendee focus was not on vintage sports cards but divided up between modern and autos. Of course, there were some buyers like myself there but I was expecting that to be the primary focus and it absolutely was not.

While at the show, I was hoping to buy a raw card from a dealer and bring it over to the SGC booth for submission to take advantage of their show discount and not have to pay shipping to Boca Raton. I currently had another small grading order at SGC already which was close to completion. I asked the SGC customer service individual there if they could take my card back and ship it together with the other small order that I had on hand with them to save another $30 return shipping charge on a single $300 card that I was looking to submit.

As is the norm these days, they denied my request for accommodation. So, that killed the deal, I passed on buying the card at the show so the dealer lost a sale, I didn’t get the card that I wanted and SGC lost grading fees. A lose/lose/lose all the way around. That’s how the corporate entities are in the hobby these days, they think the collector needs them more than they need the collector, well this mentality doesn’t work for me so I am done submitting anything to them ever again.

The “customer is always right” mentality is beyond frustrating.

“Do something special for me that you don’t do for anyone else and adds to our workload and if you don’t, you’re the worst company ever.”

Yo! I'm in RVA, I used to go to the Tuff Stuff shows back in high school. Have a fond memory of my friend and I walking up the exit ramp at the stage that Arod was signing on, and yelling at him "HEY AROD". He looked up, and we both waived, laughed to ourselves, then ran down the ramp. Just dumb fun kid stuff.

Funny, the way I look at it, the corporate attitude is beyond frustrating. Everything in this world is only about the almighty dollar these days and whatever is going to get you there.

I don’t blame SGC in this case. For a small submission/single card, they would be taking on liability for transport (that insurance may or may not cover), and, it would likely be an administrative headache for the card to get from the card-mule coming back from Chantilly (to their house), to SGC Monday morning, then to find your specific (admittedly small) order, have it held until your order is ready, and then include the Chantilly card with the other order in the package back to you; mind you that your original submission did not include postage and thus insurance for the chantilly card. That is a lot of “stuff” for one submission.

I make no comment on SGC generally. But in this case, I don’t blame SGC (or anyone else) under the circumstances.

Let’s just say that this was not an isolated incident, instead the culmination of many years of continued frustration. Nothing like the days of the early 2000’s under an entirely different regime.

+1. Many fond memories of the Tuff Stuff shows going back to the 1980s. I wish a good show would come back to Richmond.