Philly Show this weekend....see you there ?

[morgan118]

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.

[judsonhamlin]

I will affirm what Mike just posted about Friday night. The crowds were smaller, the dealers fewer and the prices just as unrealistic as predicted. Pre-war cards, except for a few dealers, were overgraded and overpriced. One dealer had a SGC 50 common at 100.00 and a SGC 30 Chance for 375. Why? That is, at most, 150.00 worth of cards...
Many dealers I had hoped to see didn't set up, including Bill Henderson, whose name was on the program, but whose booth was empty.
I did pick up some cards, but not really enough to justify the 1 1/2 drive in December. It may be too early to write this show's obituary, but its long-term prospects are poor at best.

[e107collector]

I just arrived home from the show today, and I had a great time. The crowd wasn't like it was at Fort Washignton, but by mid-day, there was a good number.

I enjoyed being able to meet a few fellow board members, and put a face with their name. I got a few cards slabbed by SGC, and it was a great day in PA for the ride down the turnpike.

There was some great material on display for upcoming auctions. Mile High and Legendary had some nice cards. There was also some dealers/auction houses that had a lot of hgigh end cards that weren't on display, but rather under the table, so to speak.

There was a new auction house called Paragon Auctions, that had some great cards on display, especially a Boston Garter color Mathewson.

I will be back there in December 2010.

Tony

[morgan118]

Definitely more traffic on Saturday and made a few more purchases, thank God. I fly into this show so it is a decent expense commitment for me. I purchased a very nice 1948 Leaf Boxing Abe Attell from Ted Z., and 2 killer Redman Tobacco Cards- a 1952 raw Willie Mays for $225.00 from Louis Bollman and a 1954 SGC 88 Jim Gilliam for $160.00 which looks undergraded from Wayne Varner.

All in all still a good show but I hope the promoters cut the cost back somewhat to try to keep this alive. At 1:00pm I asked one dealer, E & R Galleries, how he was doing and he said he had sold $60.00 total for the day thus far ! Those are flea market numbers. Pretty tough to make money like that. Another disturbing situation was the amount of thefts being reported from dealers' booths on both Friday night and Saturday. Also not good for continued dealer support.

There are so few shows like Philly around anymore I hope everything that can be done to keep this one going is implemented. It would be a shame for it to go the way of Sportsfest in Chicago.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by judsonhamlin

Many dealers I had hoped to see didn't set up, including Bill Henderson, whose name was on the program, but whose booth was empty.

Bill told me at the National that he was on the verge of moving to Florida; he had closed his Beckett "store" and was basically stepping back and was trying to sell most of his inventory. I wonder if he completed his missions

Rich

[judsonhamlin]

I checked Bill's eBay/Beckett sites and that makes sense. Ebay only had a few listings and Beckett is closed.

[bcbgcbrcb]

I was at the show yesterday and was able to accomplish what I set out to do plus make a nice purchase that I never expected. I consigned a lot to Bill Goodwin's next auction, submitted a bunch of photos to BGS for grading and picked up the following postcard thanks to Toby which pictures HOF'ers, Red Faber & Eddie Collins (possibly more but have not been able to identify everybody yet):

[Leon]

This isn't to bash anyone or anything but 2 yrs ago at the National, Scott and I asked about a table at this show for the following year (last year). We were told they were probably all booked so we walked away. When I went to that very show last year there were about 1/3 of the tables empty. I went up to the promoters booth and asked about what happened. I was told they made a mistake but they would call and let me know about the next show. No call, of course. So, Scott and I will eventually find a show that is more interested in us setting up at. Maybe this is one of their problems? I honestly have no idea what they were thinking either time I asked but maybe it was the "well, we only have limited space" so they could make like it's really active?

I did have a great time the 1 time I went to Philly when I stayed with Teddy Z. I saw a lot of friends at the show too. Unfortunately, I think they need to find employees more interested in doing their job (promoting) than whatever they are doing. Again, just my take....

[Peter_Spaeth]

Mebbe they don't want Texans.... understandable if that is the case ....