OT a bit. The small town card show. Still worthwhile?

[ls7plus]

It's hard to forget the excitement that permeated the hobby in the late '80's to early 90's, when it seemed like there was no ceiling to the market for things like 50's Mantles, Aaron's and Mays'. A lot of that same fever (albeit speculative and transient) permeated the coin market in the 60's too (rolls of 1950D nickels, for example). The lasting benefit of those days was that they brought a lot of us back into collecting--we learned a lot after the bottom fell out of the new card market, and re-channeled our interests into vintage items.
And yes, I agree that it's still nice to get reaquainted with a few dealers, but find in my area that I hardly ever find anything worth purchasing at those shows these days. I think the last card I bought from a smaller dealer was a R 315 Foxx at one of those shows, although I did get a 1921 Exhibit Ruth from William Chappell in 2007 at our local Gibralter Trade Center show. His table often seems like an oasis in the sea of all of the new crap that's out there.