One thing I didn't mention, though it was touched on in other threads I believe, is that a LOT of the vintage dealers (maybe almost 33+% of them, and in all fairness, probably the folks selling new product as well) either had no prices on the cards in their display cases, or they were on the back of the cards and you couldn't see them. Many of the dealers have been at the National and have done this for many years. Moreover, many of the dealers were presumably once collectors. How they could not have found this practice frustrating as collectors (and then vowed to do things differently as dealers) is puzzling to me. For the dealers of newer material, I can kinda see why they might not want to price things out (e.g., due to more volatility); maybe one doesn't want to put prices on everything. But a lot of the vintage is holding steady.
I mean, if you wanted to visit or at least glance at every table and turn some items in for consignment or grading, and if you are there for only 1 day or even 2 days, you can't possibly get everything done if you have to spend time asking every other dealer what they pricing is. If I see a card marked at $650-$800 that is normally going for $400, I know I likely won't be negotiating a price that both the dealer AND I will be happy with, so I won't even want to waste time looking carefully at the card. But if the price isn't marked, you look at the card, and then you're gonna ask the price. It seems like most of the time that I had to ask the price or had to have the card flipped over to reveal the price, the price was very high and the dealer was unwilling to make a more reasonable offer. That's the pattern I noticed myself.
Anyway, the pricing/no pricing issue was a minor pet peeve of mine (though it is hardly a practice that is confined to just the National)! Otherwise, it was chock full of great experiences and interactions. It was so nice to see so many dealers bringing tickets to sell. Of course there are a few dealers that specialize in tickets, but there were just more tables with tickets this year compared to the last National in Chicago. And folks were happy to talk tickets! I received some good suggestions from a couple of ticket folks about how to group some tickets for a planned auction consignment. All in all, the 2023 National indeed met and maybe even exceeded my expectations!
|