Nashville show report
 

I went to the Nashville show on Friday... paid $30 for the VIP entry at 10AM and stayed until 4PM Here is the good, bad, and ugly of the day.

Good:
Plenty of dealers with 1930s-1970s vintage. Some stacks of Goudeys, but I didn't look through those because I knew if I did I would get distracted from my goals.

Both high end graded stuff and ungraded low condition bargin bins. I tend to go lower end because I don't want to shell out the $$ for PSA 7s and there are simply too many cards that I want copies of.

One dealer had three 1952 T Mantles, one of which with a $100k price tag on it. Same dealer had multiple Ruths, Cobbs, Mays & Aaron rookies, etc. in PSA 4-6. He didn't have prices showing on most and I didn't ask since I was sure they were well out of my price range.

I did see more 1934-36 Batter Ups here than I have at other shows, so I picked up my first one - HOFer Rick Ferrell for $50.

I also tend toward raw cards, but did buy 2 graded cards at this show. The first was (in my opinion) the nicest PSA 4 1966T Mantle at the show which he had priced at $395 and I ended up paying $340 for. Probably could have got the guy down some more, but comps ranged from $240 to $380-ish so I said good enough. I also got a 1958T All-Star card of Luis Aparicio in PSA 3 for $20. Can't even get one graded for that.


Bad:
Very little in the way of T206s and other tobacco cards. I ended up picking up 3 T206s (one Polar Bear back, one Sovereign back, one Piedmont back... all common players) which is less than half of what I got at this same show last year. I think I am going to have to try Philly, Strongsville, or Chantilly next year.

My main target for the day (other than a '66 or '67 Mantle) was a '54T Banks rookie. There were probably 4-6 at the show. Some higher graded than I could afford and others that just didn't present well or were priced too high for their grade to even bother negotiating. So Mr. Banks' RC is still on my want list (gotta save back up though!).

By the time I left at 4PM probably 15-20% of the dealers still had not setup at all. I guess they were waiting until Saturday.


Ugly:
I was looking for a hit to my 1955T set which is now down to just 5 cards (Aaron, Koufax, Clemente, Mays, Berra). I saw maybe 3-4 Clemente RCs. There were a bunch of Koufax RC's though... a low condition (maybe PSA 1?) for $600 caught my eye but I had really wanted to focus on the Banks RC first. Anyways, I saw an ungraded and O/C '55T Berra on a display board and noticed it had two pinholes in it, but otherwise presented very nice. That would have been perfect for my set since it's a beater set with most cards in the G+/- range. I asked the dealer how much and he said $300. I put it down and walked away as he said that it was some such $ card. I said yeah but it has two pinholes in it.