where is all the vintage at shows?
 

Does anyone have any ideas on why it is so rare to find any vintage at shows anymore? There seems to be a lot less out there then there was 3-5 years ago. Not that long ago I remember being able to put 1950's sets together picking up commons and stars at local shows. Why not now?

I think it's a combination of a few things. More people are in the hobby now. Especially folks that are a bit more secure in their lives, financially speaking, and have more passive income. Naturally they're going to buy cards from their youth or cards of players they heard about from their dads, uncles, grandfathers, etc growing up.

Modern is also selling very well. Look no further than the National. Sure there were plenty of vintage sellers and buyers but cards of guys like Julio Rodriguez, Aaron Judge, and Fernando Tatis, were selling like hotcakes. Sellers will naturally adjust their inventory then.

As a side note, the idea has been thrown around for vintage only shows. I saw it being talked about in one of the threads on the National. I would very much love that idea, as the modern side of the hobby does not appeal to me in the slightest and I know many others that feel the same way.

There used to be a long-running vintage only show in Troy, NY if memory serves. I would love something like that on a regional scale.

I feel raw vintage is still plentiful at shows especially if you don’t care much about building EX-MT and up set condition. However, graded vintage say NM and up is getting harder and harder to find. Commons even more so than stars.

As far as graded set building goes it’s getting tougher and much more expensive. Personally I’d love an all vintage show and would travel anywhere in the country for a large show. Been to Strongsville a couple times and it’s really a small show, not really worth my 13 hour drive each way. :)

Philly usually has a decent amount of graded vintage, other than the national it’s the best one I know of.

Part of the issue is it is difficult to justify grading commons, due to the price of grading.

Yes!!

If they really are thinking that if the National ever does come back to Cleveland, of moving it from the IX Center to the Huntington Convention Center in the downtown area, maybe the people now running the Strongsville show should approach the group that now handles the IX Center to see about moving their shows there to the IX Center in the future. The IX Center is literally just a few freeway exits north of where the Strongsville show has always been put on, about 10 minutes or so away. That way they could easily expand the old Strongsville vintage show and have pretty much as many dealers as would want to come and set up there.

When Paul Fusco was running the show, over the years he would have the likes of SGC, JSA, or REA on site. Steve Menzie, the owner operator of Toronto's Sports Card and Memorabilia Expo, has taken over running the show since Paul's passing a few years back, and had various auction houses and JSA at the 2022 show earlier this year, following a two-year hiatus because of Covid. They always talk of having a fairly long list of dealers waiting to be able to do the Strongsville show. Moving it up the road to the IX Center would allow them to be able to accommodate all those waiting dealers, and then some. Hopefully they'll continue to keep the future shows all vintage oriented, as they have done in the past. One can only hope, right?

Auctions. There are thousands of vintage cards at auction every month.

Depends what kind of set your trying to build graded. Most major auction houses don't bother with commons selling between $50-100, it's not worth their time. You have the big auction houses that deal in ultra high-end and you have the shoebox collections of low-mid grade raw stuff at smaller auction houses. Not a whole lot in between. Other than eBay and Facebook groups, card shows help fill this major gap.

I have never a problem finding vintage 50’s stuff at shows. Always plenty around. Pre-war, not so much.

I dunno, I am finding lots of stuff like that in the Lelands pop-up, the REA Encore, and Sterling.