Posted By:
bruce Dorskind
Whilst the Valley Forge convention center was a vast improvement over Reading,
and words apart from the old, dirty Willow Grove location,we thought that this
year's Philly show was disappointing at best.
It was great to see a few legendary collectors and long-time dealers. Attendance, although
strong did not appear to serve as a catalyst for a great many important transactions.
We spoke to 15 different long-time and well respected dealers. They indicated that their
business was off 20-40%; that buying high grade rare material was next to impossible and
that, with the exception of really special pieces, sales were off/
We walked and studied the offerings at more than 50 tables.
There were a number of wonderful "to be auctioned" items at several tables including
Legacy and Huggins and Scott.
As far as we were able to discern, there was only one table that had any truly extraordinary
cards for sale- that was Legacy. Gracing Greg's table were a large Gypsy Queen of Ward,
a Yum Yum of Keefe and a Lone Jack of Comiskey.
Very few e-cards in what we considerable acceptable grades were to be found. The few high grade Goudeys were
the same players one sees all the time and there were very, very few extraordinary advertising pieces or
ultra rare books.
Again, it was nice to see old friends; learn what the Hobby was thinking about the demise of
the largest auction house and garner a real time understanding of the current state of the rare
card market.
Looks like we are in for an extremely tough year. Our other observation was that most of the dealers
with whom we spoke believe that the recent upheaval in the market will enable Robert Edward Auctions
to become the truly dominate force in the high end baseball memorabilia and rare card market.
Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List