National Dealer Pass
 

HI Everyone.. I am trying to find an extra dealer pass for the national.... so that i may attend the show on Tuesday as dealers are setting up... happy to pay for the pass.. if you are able to assist would you please email me at blunder19@aol.com

Jamie gets priority, 100%. But if anyone has a second pass, I would love one as well and happy to pay for it. Again, Jamie is first.

3rd
 

Put me on the list behind these folks !!

How does this work if you’re not set up paying for table. Seems like undercutting to me. This hobby never seems to amazing me. Pay the full price for a table then you will get a pass. Vest pocket dealers ugh.

Johnny

I am not a dealer. I am not looking to sell any cards. Thus the reason I don’t want to pay full price for a dealer booth when I won’t be selling any cards. I simply want to walk around on Tuesday and BUY cards for my collection a day before the general public walks in....

But your right .... the hobby never stops surprising me... including your unecessary reply to this thread...

First off I don’t beilve you do not buy and sell cards. Second you’re undercutting people who do this for their business. People are always looking for a edge like yourself, ie being cheap. Wait in line and pay just like the rest of us in the collecting world.

He would be stupid if he DIDN'T look to find and exploit an advantage. Plus, he's doing it right out in the open. Good luck, OP!!!

This ^^^

It's common practice for folks with friends who are dealers to get into the show this way before everyone else. The best deals are made before you walk in the door.

Badges
 

A couple of years ago, the prize for some of the final price contests was dealer badges I believe. Some form of badge to enter the show early.

Jamie if you find three let Ryan and I know !!

Thanks,
Adam

How is this fair to the general public/collector who spends airfare, meals, and lodging to show up on Wednesday for all the good material to be gone? This is why my dealer friend refuses to put any of his material out for sale until Wednesday for the collector base which is the customer he wants to have around :-) not the vest pocket dealers looking for wholesale prices.

This makes an interesting discussion.

it's one of the things I'll try to write about in my monthly GTS column. This will be part of the pre-National column I'll write.

And trust me, I get all sides of this discussion and I know from personal discussion that some vendors who pay good money for tables/booths would be upset at Jamie for this. I know this can't be stopped and at least Jamie is open about his wishes.

Regards
Rich

So, I am likely going to buy a table at next year’s national just so I can get in Tuesday. I am not a dealer and I will likely set nothing up at that table, which means there will be one less dealer to buy from. But I will have paid full freight, and even though everyone else will be out one dealer Johny630 will be happy and that all that matters.

I'll take the table off your hands :D

>>> I am not a dealer. I am not looking to sell any cards. Thus the reason I don’t want to pay full price for a dealer booth when I won’t be selling any cards. I simply want to walk around on Tuesday and BUY cards for my collection a day before the general public walks in...

This response just leaves the taste that the OP is trying to 'justify' his actions. I'm not faulting him for trying to get the pass (or using it), I just wonder who he is trying to justify his actions to. The person who responded or himself.

As a table holder
 

I know this happens with friends of dealers. It’s not a big deal to me on Wednesday before the show opens. Tuesday is more debatable when dealers have to pay extra to come in on Tuesday instead of Wednesday and one of the things we are paying for is the right to look at the tables before others. It’s not an illegal act but I can see why some see it as distasteful.

The era of big deals and bargains on Tuesday was over years ago. Most dealers are not even set up until Wed. afternoon.

I guess I don't understand why a dealer would move his stuff wholesale before the public shows up to buy retail on Wednesday. I have heard of folks offering their entire inventory on Sunday at a wholesale price to avoid dealing with it and effectively refreshing and turning their inventory as they take the $$ and buy up some new stuff.

What is the desire to move the good stuff early before having a chance to get full value?

.

Wow. In my regulated line of business, this would result in immediate arrest and 3-5 years in the clink-clink. Sounds like you're trying to buy a call option on a '33 goudey lajoie with a Sunday expiration before he general public has access. I'll go on record as saying I want no part of this... on either side.

please post a link to your column

I will when I write it for my next column. Trust me, I get all the sides of this discussion.

These are the monthly columns I've already written

https://gogts.net/category/kleins-korner/

Rich

I would think the show organizers would want to accommodate the VIP's and big spenders. I don't expect them to accommodate me shuffling through a bargain bin after I've been told to leave.

My father buys and sells Lionel trains and always has a couple of dealer tables at one of the larger North East regional train shows in York, PA. This train show is biannual, and the organizers of the shows stipulate in the contract for a table, that the dealer must have a presence on the table from show's opening on Thursday afternoon through the shows end on Sunday morning.

The organizers keep pretty good tabs on this, and failure to maintain what the organizers consider a significant presence at your tables black lists the dealer for at least the following 2 shows, and their table requests will get denied for those 2 shows at a minimum. They had to implement this to keep dealers from leaving early and not showing up on Sunday morning as well as people registering for a table, only to walk around the show before the public opening to make purchases, sales or trades and never put merchandise out on their tables.

My sense, or at least hope, is that Ryan was being facetious here. I'm not a dealer and never intend to be one, but my understanding is that there is a waiting list of dealers who are trying to get into the National, and there's a lottery for those tables, so just getting one in the first place isn't that easy. And for those that do get a table, I'm sure the NSCC dudes - not to mention every single buyer who buys tickets - wants to see those tables filled with inventory.

Early buyers pass
 

Many antique shows and markets sell early buyers passes. For a card show if admission is $10, a pass for set up could be $30 to $100. It gives everyone a chance to buy early.

Yes, I am joking. Just taking a shot at Johny630's comment.

I think this is sort of correct. There is a waiting list for those who didn't get a table reserved the year before. Personally I think the National Committee has greatly gone down with Mike's passing. The committee needs to be completely replaced in my opinion, if they don't change the way tables are sold. This is the 21st century and they run the thing like it is from the 1960s.....(to me). And for God's sake, get effing Gizmo off of the committee. He is an idiot. I spoke with him recently and my view was reaffirmed. Any time someone's main defense, to a very obviously flawed system is, "because that is the way it's always been done" to me, it means it's time for them to move onto other endeavors in life.

As for early passes for folks who aren't table holders, it doesn't bother me as a table holder or otherwise. The more the merrier.

glad to see you got a table leon. looking forward to chatting with you again. (even though it has been quite a few years, at a previous Cleveland nat’l.)

I didn't get a table this year but have split one for many years in the past. The system for getting tables is antiquated (there is this new thing called "computers"). It was never as much of an issue as it is now that Mike isn't here.

I dont get the outrage over the OP trying to get a dealer pass for the show. I asked a friend setting up last year if he had an extra one, and paid what it cost him. There was nothing nefarious about it, and I certainly didn't walk around before the show started picking up a bunch of cards at wholesale prices. What dealer would want to blow out their inventory at discount prices the night before the biggest show for the year kicks off?

To me this thread is like being at a Van Halen concert in 1984 and being pissed all to hell that the hot girl was allowed to go backstage without a pass and you weren't. :)