Shriners in MA
 

Amy day 1 reports from this show? Hoping to head over there Sunday and curious for a few reports on the vibes. If I missed a thread please let me know and will delete. Thanks!

I was there on Friday at noon when the show opened. Apparently some had been told that it didn't open until 2:00 PM, so some dealers were late setting up. Tons of modern stuff, much of it -- if not most -- was slabbed. Lots of hockey. Not much vintage baseball, but how much do you need if you buy a T206 dark hat Matty SGC 4.5 for $5K? (I didn't, by the way, but there were a few very nice pieces there.)

The Shriner's Hall tables appeared to be almost sold out, but I covered it in about three hours. There was just SO MUCH contemporary stuff there. Several guys were set up selling supplies and you could get pretty much anything you need (though I didn't see any Card Saver I's.) I found the last '61 Fleer football card I needed, one of the three '47-'66 Exhibit team cards I needed to complete my set, and most of the "56 Topps football I was looking for, so I was very happy. Good show for set builders, too, with several dealers with large stocks of commons/stars.

Thanks. I got there Sunday and there was confusion about opening time. It was 10, not 9 as was indicated in some of ads. No worry — I went to a nearby diner and crushed a lumberjack breakfast.

This was the first “larger” show I have been to in almost two years. It’s a far cry from the National of course but miles better than the weekly Woburn show. I agree there was lots of modern but some really nice vintage tables and some good stuff. I needed three 41 play balls and was able to get a nice raw vander meer for a really good price. There was a partial set for sale and some guy had a Mel Ott which I need but it was in an ancient PSA slab and a really bad 6 so I didn’t even inquire about a price. Couldn’t find a single Hank Greenberg unfortunately so I’m still 2 cards away.

I thought there was plenty of great binders for post war set builders, as you mentioned. In general prices were not bargain basement but not in the stratosphere for the most part, excluding a few outliers. Overall business appeared moderate, not frenzied but there was plenty of life and money was changing hands.

In general, for the post war stuff that isn’t scarce, it really pays to do a full circuit before spending. You can find a pretty wide disparity in prices from one dealer to the next.

For high end graded vintage this show typically disappoints so I went in with low expectations and it's a good thing I did. I say the modern to vintage spilt was 80/20 for graded cards and the majority of grades for vintage were EX-MT and under. If your building a NM or NM-MT set your options were limited, prices were on the higher end as expected but not outrageous.

For raw collectors there were plenty of affordable options.

The November show is always the better of the two Wilmington shows. Last weekends show was the April postponed Rich Altman show. The November show is better than White Plains, better than Chantilly, not quite as good as Philly but fairly close. It's always the first weekend in November and is worth the travel.