Attended the show Friday night and will be back today since I booked a room at the attached hotel. If the show gets any smaller it will be more like my local church basement show. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the real wide aisles between tables when I came in. Many well known dealers are no longer setting up and the ones I talked to were all complaing about the cost. Doesn't bode well for the future of what once was a real destination for sports collectors. It really is a shadow of what it used to be in Fort Washington.
As far as items for sale, the usual overpriced graded material and VG-EX raw material at nr-mint pricing. Most of the dealers are either out of touch with the current prices that items are being sold for right now or just love packing and unpacking their inventory. I noticed one dealer who I see at virtually every show with a very high end gouping of 1951 Topps Red Backs for around $5,500.00. I tried to make him a reasonable offer I believe over 2 years ago for this very same set that he has set up at this show, wouldn't budge. So, here he is almost 3 years later still packing and unpacking the same cards and they still have the same price on them. I really don't understand how it is possible to tie up this amount of inventory dollars for years and years and never get the hint that your material is too overpriced to sell. He either paid virtually nothing for the cards and is hoping for someone who has more money than brains to stumble onto his booth or he has married the cards.
In any case I did manage to make a few purchases of individual items from Richie Salberg of Rchie's Sports Cards, Chuck Blue of Blue Gems and Steve from Steve's Cards and more to make the show worthwhile. I really think the show is on the brink of disappearing however, which would be a shame for our hobby. Hopefully the Chicago show in November will be better.
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