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Posted By: Joann

Wow. What a great trip. First National - first card show of any kind.

I have met tons of great people from Net54, and have enjoyed talking to each and every one of them. I won't try to name them all b/c I'm sure to miss someone - there have been so many. The dinner was a really nice event. Thanks to Leon for putting it together, and the insistence on name tags was a great idea - we could all pick each other out easily.

The show is really good too. I'm right with Brian McQ in that I've always heard there is no vintage material and found that not to be true at all. I thought there was a ton of vintage. A lot of it was unique items, 19th century and early 20 stuff that you just wouldn't see anywhere else. At times it kind of felt like a museum.

At almost halfway through I decided I couldn't look at vintage so closely or I wouldn't make it all the way through the room in the 8 hours I had. A lot of the modern card dealers also had some vintage cards, and some dealers taht honestly I've never even heard of had pretty extensive selections. And that's for Pre WWII vintage. If you extend into the 50's then there's a ton of it. There is so, so much that I actually kind of got numb to it after awhile. Never ever ever thought I'd see that day. Pricing? Like ebay I suppose, in that some was way over the top expensive and others very reasonable.

I didn't have any trouble walking right up to whatever I wanted to see - it was busy, but not so packed you couldn't function. Oh - and the food wasn't that bad either, and enough stands so there weren't horrible lines.

Best tips I got, and one I have for myself next time:

Whoever said to take a pen and paper and jot down what you see and where you see it was a genius. The first few things I saw I thought I'd surely remember which table, what it was. By about the second or third row that was an impossibility - there was just too much to keep track of. So I was glad I had pen and paper.

Whoever said not to buy the first thing you see was also a genius. The first table I stopped at had such cool vintage that I thought it had to be the best stuff there. Until I got to the next table. And the next.

Third genius = whoever said to wear comfortable shoes.

For myself next time, I'll go with a bit of a plan or a few things to look for specifically. To try to go just see if there would be anything I might want was impossible - there's so much it's just overwhelming to consider anything and everything that might fit my collection. There was a ton of it. Those with more advanced and extensive collections might not have this problem, but for me I think I'll do better if I have more focus.

Reporting from National, with sore feet and a cold beer, your humble correspondent.

Joann