Was at the show for three hours yesterday morning. Seemed reasonably crowded although I agree the energy was down a bit from recent prior years and there was some apprehension in the air. I would imagine there will be some bargains today but I can’t make it. Overall observations:
1. It’s a set builders paradise. This is the only local show that has guys with binders packed full of cards by set going back to 1951. My personal favorite is JP’s Sports Collectables. Great dealer to work with, very fair on pricing.
2. The amount of merch both pre and post war is staggering. Hard to estimate the retail value of the cards in the room but I will take a stab and say $30-50m. Lots of T2xx stuff, Goudeys and Play Ball. It does seem there’s a little less heads up than the other stuff. I was looking for a 38 Foxx and saw a low and mid grade one but neither one had the “XX” and the pricing was significantly above what I’ll eventually grab on line.
3. Great specialty stuff. I’m a Yaz collector and got to know the guy with the top Yaz set in the registry. He didn’t have the 64 stand up I wanted but I did grab a nice PSA 7 1971 Greatest Moments from him and that was my grab of the show.
4. Good 75 Topps minis are hard to find. Plenty of guys had stacks of minis but finding true 7+ cards is tough and there was very few if any high end graded minis in the room. If there was, I couldn’t find it though I did manage to upgrade some commons and secondary cards.
5. Raw Tom Seaver RCs are hard to find. Didn’t see a single one although I saw several overpriced graded examples.
Overall I stuck with my game plan and avoided any impulse buys. I found zero arbitrage opportunities which isn’t usually the case and most stuff there is overpriced, some of it laughably so. You really need to choose your spots at a show like this. Also I met Howard C and he was a nice guy. Wish I had more time though.
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