[calvindog]

I agree that Baltimore was a great place for the National for all the reasons Rob brought up. I think the purpose of any Natioanl location should be the proximity to the airport and trains, which Baltimore had. As noted above as well, however, in some instances such a location leaves visitors far from the decent parts of the host city. This is not the case in Baltimore.

As for the material presented, I was a bit disappointed. I found a bunch of stuff I liked enough to buy but I felt that there was not a plethora of unusual, one-of-a-kind cards to be had. Perhaps I was too optimistic.

I've only been to two shows so I'm clearly not used to the deceptive practices of dealers and there was plenty to be had at the National. Lies about cost of cards to the dealers abounded; and it wasn't like I would ask a dealer for this information as it's really not relevant. Instead, they would offer it in an attempt to explain why the prices were so high. Many of the prices were just insanely high. For example, I saw a Dietsche Cobb batting in PSA 6; I bought this card for $1100 (admittedly low) on ebay about a year or so ago. It was 4K at the National. You can obviously haggle on any price but when the starting price is 400% more than the card is worth, there's no point to even start a discussion.

What I did learn which worked very well with dealers is to literally take the Benjamins out and show them to the dealers while haggling. For what it's worth, I never seek to get a price on a card below market value so perhaps this is why my method worked well. But three times I got shot down on more than fair offers for cards; a few hours later I walked back literally waving the Benjys in the dealers' faces. They are apparently physically unable to let customers walk away with a stack of hundreds waving in their face and each time gave me the card (faux grudgingly, of course) at the price they previously refused.

I had some nice discussions with people there, especially Terrible Ted, Bill Latzko and Dan McKee and some Net 54 members. And it's great to be immersed in cards for a couple days.

My funniest interraction at the National, however, had to be meeting this one skinny bald dude who was looking all over the place for a 1976 Kurt Bevacqua Topps card (blowing that huge bubble) in PSA 9. I hope he had some backup plans at the show because I don't think he had much luck.