Now that the dust has settled....observations regarding The 2018 Cleveland National

[jefferyepayne]

I go every year. The reality now is that you can find more items online (and usually at a better price) than you can at any card show, including the National. You used to hear that you would see things at the National that you'd never seen before. While this is still a possibility, it doesn't happen as much now with all of the online auctions out there.

However you can't have a beer with long time friends online. You can't sit at the bar and talk to a former MLBer online. You can't sit next to a collector and trade cards online ... or put a face with a name (ID) ... or experience a show with your kids. There are so many reasons beyond cards to make the trek each year to the National. The National is our hobby's yearly convention. If you look at it as that, its a can't miss event even if you come home with nothing but memories.

jeff

[iowadoc77]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

I go every year. The reality now is that you can find more items online (and usually at a better price) than you can at any card show, including the National. You used to hear that you would see things at the National that you'd never seen before. While this is still a possibility, it doesn't happen as much now with all of the online auctions out there.

However you can't have a beer with long time friends online. You can't sit at the bar and talk to a former MLBer online. You can't sit next to a collector and trade cards online ... or put a face with a name (ID) ... or experience a show with your kids. There are so many reasons beyond cards to make the trek each year to the National. The National is our hobby's yearly convention. If you look at it as that, its a can't miss event even if you come home with nothing but memories.

jeff

So well said Jeff. I agree 100%. Catching up with old friends and making new ones and experiencing all of it with my son was absolutely priceless. Showing him what I collect and why and digging through boxes to find what he collects and introducing him to my friends in the hobby. Awesome stuff.
One highlight was finding his first prewar baseball card as he is a new and shiny football card collector. A PSA 4 Hughie Jennings T206 both arms pose that is nearly perfectly centered and very very nice for the grade at a very fair price.
That card now resides right in the middle of his display case in his room. And he is pumped about it. Sharing that moment with him is something I will truly never forget.
I love this hobby. I love the relationships that have been made. I love the convention. I try to go into it with expectancy instead of expectation. I don’t expect to find some amazing deal but it’s cool if I do. I don’t expect to find exactly what I am looking for but it’s cool if I do. I don’t expect everything to go a certain way. I go with the hope of having a great time for the right reasons and it always seems to happen. And sometimes I even bring home great stuff purchased from great people.
Eric

[swarmee]

This guy wasn't enthused about his experience with SGC:
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1230794

Oh, and on that topic, SGC changed their labels for the Pristine graded cards to be abbreviated as PRI instead of PR, which some were confusing with PR for Poor.

So now we have the following grades at the three major TPGs:
BCCG 10: Mint or Better (most people value this as an 8 or 8.5)
BGS/BVG/PSA/SGC 9: Mint
SGC 9.5: Mint+ *newly invented grade: 97 / 9.25?*
BGS/BVG 9.5, SGC 10 (old 98) Black Label, and PSA 10: Gem Mint
BGS 10 Pristine comes in Black Label for all 10 subgrades or Gold Label for one 9.5 subgrade.
SGC Pristine Gold Label (no number, old 100)

[Spike]

As a low grade and type collector, Nationals provide more stuff to sift though than other shows, even if walking on all that concrete takes a lasting toll. This year, I found an above-average amount of lower-grade material and saw it at tables earlier in the week than other years. That gets a thumbs-up from me. (Based on reports so far, that didn't mean people were having bad weeks and not selling anything, as I've heard as a "sign" at some other Nationals.)

Prices for the bigger names felt 20-25% higher than you'd pay online, despite a high number of dealers showing big-name cards and arguably competing against each other. My one significant buy, a low-grade Sports Kings Cobb, cost $240 from a dealer who didn't have a great table location, which might've helped me in that deal. I came ready to buy a similar condition Sport Kings Ruth and didn't find many to choose from, so left without that hit.

I appreciated that you can retreat to carpeted promoter areas and rested my legs several times near eBay's booth. Cleveland's layout is OK, since you can see almost everything in straight lines. It does seem beholden to big booths needing to use the aircraft doors for load-in and load-out. As a visitor, I'd like to see Topps, Panini, and so forth as a side-to-side presence in the middle of the show surrounding the ferris wheel. Having them end-to-end along one edge feels like two shows that happen to be in one building.