I braved the traffic, long lines and endless tables of shiny junk yesterday and went to the show. It took me an hour and 20 minutes to get in. There were a couple thousand people waiting in line when I got there — and many thousands more waiting in another line to get into the anima/comics show. I wandered around the show for about two hours before I found Adam's table and actually spent some money.

After listening so many proclaim the imminent demise of the hobby, it was great to see so many people of all ages seriously geeking out on baseball cards. In the future, I would like to see all the vintage stuff in one place, and I think the promoter should have a section on the show's website explaining where people can park. The parking signs that were posted by the city of Anaheim actually steered people away from the show.

I think that would have been a great idea and very helpful. I followed my GPS which took me to the main parking entrance in the front (closed). Then I followed where the police steered me and that parking was also closed and I ended up driving away from the convention center. That's why I finally gave up.

Looks like your son did well for himself and pickup some great players

Ryan,
That’s what it’s all about, love that post

Cheers My Friend!

Thanks Jeff! I was excited to see him excited. He plays travel ball, we watch our Braves together, and at 12yrs old he's into vintage cards...Great times.

The lack of vintage at the show is way more indicative of the lack of vintage dealers on the West Coast (and as mentioned in this thread, Florida as well) than it is the overall strength of the vintage market.

Not to mention near every dealer with Mantles/Jackie/Ruth/Clemente/Hank in their showcase was in the stratosphere above recent sales.

I travel for a ton of shows and it's really just The National (where I bought 0 Vintage this year), Chantilly, and Philly for shows that have any decent real vintage: both in prewar and strong 50-70s stuff. Strongsville I hear has an immaculate reputation, but I've never been. The JP Shows in NY and Garfield NJ are fine local shows with a strong amount of vintage.

But outside of those first three shows and Strongsville...maybe the Chicago Spectacular too...shows just aren't made for vintage anymore.

I’ve been all over these last couple of years, and have spent more money at shows in the last three years than I ever did in the past. That said, still a drop in the bucket, I told most of the dealers today that I need a 10x multiplier on my war chest apparently as everything I’m interested in has an extra 0 at the end of the price.

I picked up two vintage cards today, nothing crazy, but it was slim pickings, especially in what I was looking for, and for a reasonable price. For vintage, Strongsville is king, followed by Chantilly in my book. I hope to make it to Philly and Dallas this next year, as well as back to Strongsville and the National.

The west coast is light on vintage, which makes sense, there are some pockets of good stuff, but in my experience, the best stuff as far as variety and price resides on the east coast. Burbank was a good venue, with a good number of tables, still a fun show even if it didn’t have the wide variety of an east coast show.

I live about 25 minutes from Burbank Sportscards....the folks who, I guess, helped to organize the show. It's a nice card store but the vibe of the place is definitely more modern...shiny, auto product. There is a room to the side that has vintage baseball, but it's mostly raw in mid to low grade, and does not get as much traffic as the main part, which is a lot of basketball, football, patch, auto stuff.

My second and last time, I brought in some vintage cards to trade in and the kiddo behind the intake desk who was evaluating my cards looked clueless...i.e. I had a beautiful 59 Fence Busters Aaron Matthews in a CSG 8.5......the card was absolutely stunning....and he had no idea what to make of it....his eval to me ....I can't really find a comp....I can't take it.....it was not a shiny Ja Morant card so he was out of his element......I wasn't going to push it and sold the card later elsewhere....

I will second what other folks have said, the owner does seem like a really nice guy....is often on the floor....very positive vibes.

I've been to other shops in the LA area, and I've found that modern/ultra modern tends to make up the bulk of the inventory....so it's not just Burbank Sportscards...which may reflect the makeup of the inventory of the cardshow....

The bit of time I was able to get away from my table, I saw quite a bit of postwar vintage and at least half a dozen dealers with decent prewar inventory, albeit with prices that were...ambitious. More than once I thought "if these cards were worth that much I would be retired". I did find a few bits of gold here in there, like a $0.50 cent box where the modern card dealer did not remove the 1960s-70s high #s. Picked up a nice stack in great shape, two for a buck. Also, one modern dealer had a box of 1956-61 that he was blowing out without removing the rookies and lower tier HOFers. I was late to that box but still stocked up from there and bought a few really nice 1956 Dodgers for the PC.

We (AJ and me) were slammed on Friday and Saturday after opening for at least a few hours per day. Yesterday was slow, until the final rush of activity in the waning hours. Picked up a nice little basketball deal for resale. In terms of laydowns, way too many people think 90% of VCP is a dealer buy price. One guy came over at the end of the day with probably $50K in cards in a shoebox but wanted 90%-100% of value for them. Pass.

Not only was there an anime convention, there was a sneaker show AND the Marriott was simultaneously hosting a Catholic revival meeting and a professional bodybuilding competition. Plus, of course, the Disney crowd on a holiday weekend. It was quite a panoply of people. It overwhelmed the parking at the Convention Center complex but there was a ton at the Disney parking lot across the street.

In terms of the security lines, the promoter told me that it was 100% the insistence of the venue, not the show, to do rock concert style wanding for all people. They were able to get them to relent on the dealers and reorganize the lines to get things moving better after the first day.

My wife and I found the security check to be comical. Both my wife and I were thoroughly searched with a wand, which I guess was to determine if we were bringing in weapons. I guess that makes sense. I had with me a giant bag with 3 big white boxes that were taped up to drop off at COMC. One guy looked at the bag and said "oh, those are cards?" I said "yes," and that was the end of that. No scan or manual check. I easily could have had four guns and 1000 rounds of ammunition in that bag. And, seemed like about 40% of the other attendees were walking around with those plastic card safes that look just like home gun safes, and I don't think any effort was being made to check those.

Any wrap-up comments now that it's over? Any great finds, any surprises? Sorry I couldn't attend.

Living in Palm Beach Gardens, I agree with Phil. Florida is where vintage goes to die, along with lots of older retirees. The recent WPB show at the beautiful Convention Center show was a joke. With all the boomers moving to Florida, what did they do with their vintage cards?