Originally, I was going to entitle this excerpt
“Same Sh*t, Different Show,”
because that's exactly what it seemed to be...but in the end it turned into a far cry from the usual card show experience!!!!
So, (Spoiler alert) throw your keys into the bowl and come on in, won't you?
keysbowlbaseballcards.jpg
This here is a long read, indeed, because instead of being observations, this one is made up almost entirely of interactions with sellers, as I was attempting to see what I could learn about their mindset. So your patience is appreciated...and maybe a giggle or two will result??
Here’s what I (Foreshadow alert: hazily) walked away with...
1. With Price Guns Ablazing
I decided to face
‘Snakebelly Pricers’ (dealers who refuse to put price tags in plain sight on slabs and holders, but instead ‘hide’ them on the undersides) head on to specifically ask about their use of this tactic. Thankfully, there weren’t too many of them, but in the end,
a pair of most enlightening conversations stood out:
a) Snakebelly Viper
This venomous man began
(with a deliberate pronunciation of each and every syllable),
“My friend, if you are needing to see the prices on my inventory, then you are undoubtedly at the wrong table.”
Gee, tell me how you really feel, kind sir. Nothing there to take personally, no. Fighting the urge to laugh and say,
“Man, you’re a dick!!,” I put on a fake smile and listened as he continued,
“With me, it’s a prestige thing. I keep my display case in order with all cards oriented entirely in right angles, with equal spacing between the pieces (See that? His pedantic use of the museum-esque “pieces” to describe frickin' 1973 Topps Rollie Fingers and Carlton Fisk cards??). Very meticulous and clean for discerning collectors (Here’s where I thought, “Discerning?? Well, I’m out. My stuff’s crammed in piles of toploaders inside a dusty Safeway bag in the closet.”), it’s all about the presentation. My customers are in the upper income categories, and I refuse to have it any other way. They know they are buying quality cards from me and the vagaries of pricing mean nothing.”
(I got the feeling that following the show, this pretentious gentleman would arrive at his country club precisely at 6 PM on the button to sip sherry with his haughty cohorts while debating if he should tip the waiter a ‘generous’ 5% or stick with his usual 4%.)
To say I thought,
“WOW!!!” is an understatement, so I decided to try to have a little fun.
“What about collectors who have money to spend, but want to get a decent “BARGAIN” (I knowingly stressed the heck out of that word for effect)??”
His eyes flew open wide and he practically gasped, as if to say,
“A good price?? What cheeky effrontery is this????!!!” His cold stare
(stay tuned: not the last time I was to be stared at this day) informed me he didn’t want to play any more, so I politely took my leave.
As I moved on, I
DID notice there were no empty gaps left between his perfectly aligned cards, so I doubt he actually sold anything yet.
Pity.
Although the rank smugness of this guy made me want to stop interacting with people, I ventured forth anyway...
b) Snakebelly Cobra
The other dealer was very open about his pricing strategy, and told me that practically the entire time he’s behind the table at a show, he is defending his prices against the
‘phone army,’ so he never wants to lose a tactical advantage. Like a cobra rising to display an impressive hood,
I saw it more or less as a defense mechanism to ward off problematic visitors.
“When I had my prices showing, no one ever came up asking about a card without knowing exactly how much the last 5 or 10 sold for on eBay, so they were loaded and ready to start arguing about what’s on my sticker. It makes me angry, because how many times can I explain the costs involved in setting up at a show - table fees, insurance, food and travel, my time, etc.?? I guess you have to pay a little more for the show experience and for the actual touch and feel of the cards, since it’s live and in person, and not eBay on a computer.
“Now, with my prices NOT showing, just the act of asking me what my price is starts a conversation and opens a door for a possible sale. And usually when I say, ‘If you’re interested, I’ll DEFINITELY work with you on the price,’ they realize there’s a lot of room for 'the give and take dance.' My prices are obviously just ‘wish prices.’ I’d be thrilled to death if someone actually said, ‘Sure, sounds good,’ but they’re purposely high so I can be ‘talked’ - (laughing) I don’t ever actually let myself be talked into anything - down a bit on the price. It’s built in, and I think everyone knows that, right?”
I said,
“How do you combat someone who says he can pull out his phone and get one cheaper on eBay right now. Besides the ‘you don’t have to wait to get it, you can walk home with it right now’ angle, how do you get over that hurdle?”
“If it’s worth it to me enough, I’ll try to get closer to the eBay price and see if they bite, but generally there’s nothing I can do and I’m dead in the water.”
Then he admitted,
“My wife tells me I need to lower my prices, because you can’t take it with you...but she snickers when she says that, so I have a feeling she can’t wait to take IT - my collection - with HER to a pawn shop and use the money to run away to Hawaii with her boyfriend.”
Whoa...that was quite the unexpected end to our convo...and it was followed by a very long and uncomfortable silence...so, I humbly thanked him and wished him well with
(more about his wife than anything else),
“Ummm...good luck to you!”
A rueful quote I always remember from the movie
“Singles” comes to mind,
“Love disappears, baby!!”
2. The 49ers and the Gold Crush Redux
I hate the San Francisco 49ers.
There was a middle-aged
(Damn, if I actually called her that, she woulda whooped me good!!) woman and her husband at a booth selling all sorts of
SF 49ers and
Giants gear, so I approached her to talk about the experience I had at the previous show
(see “5. Glut Reaction or The 49ers and the Gold Crush” in Post #64). Unlike the monstrosity at the referenced show, this was a single table set-up, so her eyes clearly weren’t on some huge, pie-in-the-sky prize.
As always in these situations, I immediately stated how my heart
(pathetically) lies with
my New York teams, so I wasn’t a customer, but wanted to ask how sales were going.
“Not too bad, actually, and it’s still early, so who knows what the day will bring. Sometimes, it gets exciting!!!!,” she said with an electrifying grin on her face.
(If anyone is looking for a marketing rep, this lady is your golden goose!!) “We sell the usual things, but the somewhat odd stuff is what makes or breaks the day for us. I sell a shirt here, a cap (Editor’s note: I’ve never been a fan of saying “cap,” and always prefer “hat”) there, but the sales of these ‘unique’ (you could hear the air quotes in her voice) things, especially the kid-oriented stuff, is what makes a show a winner or loser for us.”
I chimed in with,
“So, you’re ‘knick-knacking’? Have you sold more of that stuff lately, because I see a lot more children at these things these days.”
She smiled,
“Knick-knacking? Ooh, I like that! Yes, definitely. I have two boys and a girl, so I know the drill. When kids come to my table, they begin ‘Please, Momming’ their mommas to death to buy them some goodies, so I stay silent and don’t interrupt...and just let the battle rage (giggling as she said it). As a fellow mom, I know I should jump in and help her out by silencing the kids with the old ‘the grown-ups need to talk now’ thing, so their efforts would be stopped cold...but the business owner in me...????”
I said,
“Needs to let her kids rip her to shreds until she’s too weak to fight back, and she’ll buy something from you to shut the little brats up??,” which led to her pointing an oddly larger than expected finger at me as she said,
“Bingo!”
“Coming from a huge family, I know the drill too," I offered.
"My brothers and sisters and I were like Navy SEALs when it came to conducting special operations against my mom.”
After relating to her the story of the guy from the last show
(referenced above), she mockingly said,
“Oh, he was SAD, was he??!! Poor baby. Bet you he didn’t tell you how large his sales were LEADING UP to the Super Bowl, did he? A funny omission that. He definitely raked in a lot of money during the playoffs. We’re small and still made a killing. This town was going nuts for anything with a Niners logo on it!!”
I said,
“And how are 49ers sales now?”
Flashing the universal hand sign of a
“big, fat zero,” she told me,
“Nobody has gotten over it (the Super Bowl loss) yet, so it’s all Giants stuff now and we’re doing pretty good with it...plus a little bit of the A’s and Yankees things, like these rings.”
"Wait," I said,
“it’s only San Francisco/Oakland teams, but you sell Yankees gear, too??”
She stated matter of factly,
“The Yankees are universal, darling. But you know what the worst part of all of it is?? It’s not that we lost the Super Bowl, but we lost it to Taylor Swift!! It got to the point where the only thing anyone was interested in was who could name the idiots sitting with her in her dumb luxury box! That just added too much insult to the injury!!!”
I hate the San Francisco 49ers.
(But rather enjoy personable ladies who sell their merch.)
3. Miscalibrated Outrage Machine or
“You’re Nuts!!!...Wait, You Mean It’s ME Who’s Nuts???”
This is the
San Francisco Bay Area (For the holy love of crap, can they just STOP completely overusing the word “Bay” in everything!! The country has a million recessed, coastal bodies of water which are directly connected to larger main bodies of water, so why do they insist the bay out here is the only one that effin’ counts???!!! GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!), so
Willie Mays is as popular in these parts as that
Loch-dwelling cryptid is in
Scotland. He stands alone, and thus his card prices are always draped in greatly inflated price stickers.
It’s like how your wife foolishly pretends she thinks of you as a stone-cold, manly-man, stud of a 10...when every other girl on the planet immediately dismisses you as a hard 3 at best (no offense, all men should be respected for the entirety of their being and not solely on looks).
The point is, the ridiculous overpricing of
Mays cards is a religion out here, so if you don’t feel like putting a
hiked-up ‘Say Hey’ offering into the collection basket, you gotta move past the cases and find comfort in the bargain bins instead. However, when an example of
overextremificational (new word) pricing catches your eye -
a price tag seemingly issued by an absolute psychopath of a lunatic - you do what any normal person would do.
You quickly grab your camera and snap a picture of it in order to reap the laughs from your fellow collectors in a thread entitled,
“Observations from the Card Show Front Lines,” so I did just that...and laugh, I did!!!
Twenty three hundred bones for a 1962 Mays in ‘merely’ a 7????? That is hilarious lunacy!!!! What is this dealer thinking????
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To really open the guffaw gates and let the laughter flow, I decided I should post prices from recent sales to use as a comparison and emphasize how crazily out of touch this guy’s
idiotic $2,300 price was.
(Editor’s note: here’s where our story takes a dark turn.)
Visiting
PSA’s ‘Auction Prices Realized’ site
(yes, these aren’t CSG slabs and prices, but the point is the same), I clicked on the listing of
7s from past auctions and fully intended on seeing sold prices ranging from
$200 to maybe
$350, but...
(with apologies to Clement Moore),
“When what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a bunch of sales with prices shockingly dear!!!!”
With the most recent sale being from over a year ago, the last five
PSA 7s have sold for an astounding:
$2,325
$3,049
$1,875
$2,172
and
$2,520!!!
Holy mother of crap!!!! This meant that the absolute psychopath of a lunatic’s asking price was in line with
‘normal’ show pricing.
What???? The realization is a hard one, but perhaps
’tis I that is the lunatic.
I have no idea what sets the value of that
Mays apart from his other cards from the 60’s
(centering?), but there is a starkly different spike in pricing for that particular card.
Lesson learned. Sometimes it’s wrong to try to use humor as a weapon.
4. My Brush with Great(deals of money)ness
I kept asking dealers,
“What’s the coolest thing that’s happened to you at a show?,” but it became pretty obvious early on that I was just hearing talking points about the joy they felt by making collectors’ dreams come true.
Barf!!
However, one guy was different...
This smiling, delightful man said,
“Well, it wasn’t at a show, but if you want to know about my coolest experience ever...you have Google, right? Type in ‘Dale Ball and Babe Ruth,’” as the smile lighting up his face grew even larger.
(Honesty alert: being weary from the day and not wanting my ungainly fingers messing up the past sales data site I was relying on, I only made a pretense of typing in the search bar, so I really do owe him an apology.)
Waiting a moment, I said,
“Oh there it is...Babe Ruth. That’s huge!!” Basically, I said nothing. The
“That’s huge!!” utterance was nothing but the laying down of a verbal welcome mat to invite him in to tell his story.
Jumping in, he regaled me with his experience of landing a multi-million dollar 1921 Shotwell Babe Ruth card, and what an incredible find it was as he found himself all over the news.
“I got my ‘15 minutes’ (of fame).” The guy working the table with him was happily nodding along as he told the story, and the
comic book vending lady at the next booth was also proudly smiling. They clearly really like him. Bitterly thinking to myself,
“Million dollar cards never fall into my lap...heck, $25 cards never fall into my lap,” I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to get a full grasp of how the story ended. But upon arriving home later, I actually
DID search out
“Dale Ball and Babe Ruth” and found a bunch of stories about his find.
Here (hopefully) are a couple of links:
https://abc7news.com/babe-ruth-baseb...-rare/5223767/
https://abc30.com/babe-ruth-baseball...-ball/5300382/
Doing a search of
Net54 to actually find specific info can be quite the drag, but I was able to locate an old thread asking about his company,
Big Baller Auctions, and another one where I was very surprised to find some people weren’t taking too kindly to him...or were they referring to an idiot
‘journalist’ (air quotes) in one of the stories? Not really sure,
but here’s that link, too:
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=265493
Since his tale was all about him and a multi-million dollar card, I said,
“How about striking a pose with the cheapest card you have available instead,” so a
two buck 1968 Jimmie Hall it was, and snap away I did...
daleballbaberuth.jpg
I didn’t spend that much time at his table, but found him to be a real nice guy who was constantly talking about how happy he was with all the free giveaways he gives to children who visit his booth or store
(the other two people were nodding along again with respect). And with a smile on his face, he basically allowed me to name my price for his
1973 Topps ‘Goose’ Gossage rookie card I had asked about. I unashamedly lowballed him, and the deal was struck without hesitation.
He was kind as heck and did me a solid, so he's great to me.
And to (ummm...sort of) keep the good vibes coming...
5. Sometimes, the Good Guy Wins...or Maybe He’s Just Inviting You to a ‘Key Party’?? Not Really Sure.
I spotted an affable-enough looking dealer who I'd never seen before, so asking him,
“I know this is a job, so leave that aspect out...for you, what’s the best part of doing a show?” he happily replied,
“Meeting you!! If you buy some cards, my wife and I will buy you and your girl a beer tonight!,” as his wife smiled at me.
(In my head, I had the same inescapable fear that every one of us vintage collectors has from time to time, “A beer with me and MY GIRL? Is this dealer trying to turn me into a swinger??”)
Trying to shake off those thoughts, I responded,
“Don’t try using your personality on me to get me to buy stuff, Buck-o!!!”
He added,
“The best thing to happen at a show is here, today. Right now. I’m just filling in at the last minute for a friend of mine who had a health scare, so I didn’t have any time to plan or arrange anything. Just grabbed a bunch of stuff and filled up his case...and here we are.”
“Oh, I hope he’s okay. How’d you do?”
A beaming reply,
“I basically sold everything!! We smashed it!! That’s why the case is so empty, nothing but the black felt to see. I don’t have a clue why it happened, but the latter-day (modern?) cards flew off the shelves right from the start and people have been picking at the bones ever since. What a day!!” (And his wife’s smile now grew from ear to ear.)
Looking at my want list, I saw that I needed a couple of
1954 Bowman commons in sick shape that remained atop his otherwise empty case. Making him an offer, and being out of cash,
I asked if PayPal was cool. He said,
“We can’t take anything other than cash and thank God, my wife’s Venmo. I just assumed I wouldn’t sell a goddamn thing today!! (his wife nodding vigorously), so we weren’t ready at all. No credit cards or anything else. We thought we’d just sit here for a few hours and go home none the richer, but we cashed in!!,” as his infectious jubilation lit up the place!!
I said,
“Okay, I gotta call my girlfriend to pick me up in a bit, so I can ask her to bring me some cash. Can you hold those two cards for me??” Both he and his wife
nodded knowingly at the mention of my girlfriend...and he said,
“Sure thing. Can’t wait to meet her,” and the fear returned again...
”Can’t wait to meet her?? Why is he bringing her up again?? Whuh?? I just wanted to buy some cards...not be lured into some afternoon delight kind of girl-swapping!!” But then again, who am I to avoid new experiences...
6. Invasion of the ‘Tiger Mom’
(Yes, ‘Tiger Mom’ is a stereotype, just like a stereotypical ‘Jewish mother’ is, but the term itself was coined by an Asian professor, Amy Chua. So do with that what you like.)
Sometimes a look from a woman is the best thing ever, while other times it is the exact opposite...
I first came across the
fivesome in the lobby -
a group of happy children all smiling and bursting with enthusiasm as they waited for mom to pay the lady, so they can get their wristbands and go into the show. (Spoiler alert: their mood changes.)
My entrance fee paid and looking to get my bearings, I began by taking a recon lap around the floor and through all of the modern tables to determine where the vintage guys were hiding out. In doing so, I ran into the group from the ticket table again -
an ultra-intense lady holding court with her four children.
Picture if you will, a clock face, with the
‘Dragon Lady’ (not going to apologize for that description, because I swear she was breathing fire as she scared the hell out of me!!) situated at
12 O’Clock and her four kids completing the circle in front of her, spaced evenly out and intently focused on her as she roared
(get it, ‘Tiger’ mom??) out instructions. I slid past them and it was no big deal.
However, time and again afterwards, everyone just kept getting blocked by this
quintet as they kept clogging up the short, two-table length lanes nestled between the aisles
(for my New York brethren, they were set up on the shorter section of street which horizontally connects one long avenue to another) and refusing to move, like this woman had reserved these sections as staging areas for her group alone.
Froms the bits and pieces of conversations I kept picking up each time I encountered them, it was quite clear that she wasn’t
some doting parent taking her joyful brood to a card show,
she was more like an economics professor conducting a Money Management 101 lecture as she and her ‘students’ walked the halls of the university. She was pushing her
enrollees, whoops, I mean
children, to attain lofty levels of achievement and success in the high reward activity of negotiating for
(what I assume were) Pokémon cards, or the like.
One exchange went like this:
To her son,
“Hey!! Stop!! What did I tell you??!!...WELL??”
Obeying her command, he came to a halt and muttered something I couldn’t hear.
“Tell me what your mistake was!”
Again something was mumbled.
“You NEVER say YES right away!! What is wrong with you??!!”
This lady was no taller than the ottoman in front of your TV, but obviously wielded the power of a hundred
(random history reference) Ottoman tribal chieftains, and It’s fair to say she didn’t give a
flying ‘F’ who heard her, as it was impossible
NOT to hear her reprimanding her progeny. Self-doubt is not an issue with this woman, and her children were now slumped over and
wearing the beaten down faces of the truly unhappy, a far cry from how their outing began an hour or two ago.
At the very same time she was chastizing her son, she turned to the dealer and told him exactly how much he was going to sell the card for.
Holding out a crisp
Hamilton, she stated,
“He’s giving you $10 for it. That’s it!!” It was not a question, it was a foregone conclusion. As if in a hypnotic trance, the seller slowly and involuntarily held out the card and took the tenner from her hand.
I was able to snap a quick photo of her during the transaction...
dragonfireflames.jpg
A bit later,
after we all were forced to stop for the umpteenth time, because they were again blocking everyone from getting through, I shot her what could only be described as a loud
(can a look be loud??) and obligatory
“WTF, lady, can you make room for other people??!!” glare of disdain.
BIG MISTAKE...HUGE!!!!
Immediately locking on to my pupils with her
fiery eyes, her enraged stare-back pierced my soul. Her eyes chilled me to the bone and shattered my spirit into a million pieces of broken glass. I hyperbolize not
(well, okay, maybe a little). But, not one to back down from a
staring contest (and always ready to fight for the rights of showgoers to have easy access to the tables they want to visit) (gee, you got a bit of a hero-complex, don’tcha??),
I steeled my nerves, locked my eyes onto hers and refused to look away...and stare back I did...but...
POOF!!
...the next thing I knew, I was slowly and groggily coming out of an intense, stuporous fugue, shaking my head and trying to wake up from the mesmerization and get my bearings back. And as I looked around, I saw the room was dark and empty, with the only other presence being a man sweeping the floor. Many hours had passed since the show had ended, and I was still standing where I was when this
momentous contest of wills had begun, having no clue where the time went or what had transpired. Clearly, that wasn't a
staring contest with a mom, it was a staring contest with an
evil, supernatural entity!!!
Looking down on the floor, I was frightened to discover a ring of five separate and detached
wristbands encircling me...
Until next time, my fellow fire mouth breathing collectors!! 