The National Friday to Sunday updates of a first timer

[Fballguy]

Great report Gary but what about the pennants?

[UKCardGuy]

Thanks Rob. There were some nice pennants for sale but they seemed to be priced at the high end of retail. I try to buy pennants at the low end of fire sale, desperately low prices.

Besides, getting a pennant in my hand luggage would be interesting.

[IndyDave]

Congrats on completing the 1973 set and good luck on getting 1970 and 1961 done tomorrow

Not surprised at all to see that JD Heckathorn had a lot of what you needed. He’s a great table for set builders.

Have fun tomorrow

[Fballguy]

Originally Posted by UKCardGuy

Thanks Rob. There were some nice pennants for sale but they seemed to be priced at the high end of retail. I try to buy pennants at the low end of fire sale, desperately low prices.

Besides, getting a pennant in my hand luggage would be interesting.

Yes...Definite challenge. Last year on the flight from CT to TX after the National, I had them in rigid holders, wrapped in bubble wrap. They let me carry them on without question.

This year, I had them curved into a "U" in my carry on bag (they were the only things in it aside from a couple articles of clothing used to maintain the integrity of the "U") and it worked out fine.

Not as easy as cards though.

Rob

[Golfcollector]

Nice haul! Goid luck tomorrow!

[UKCardGuy]

One final update covering Sunday at the National

Still benefiting from jetlag, I was at the convention center at 7:55am and parked myself on a chair near the entrance for the 95 minute wait. A few other collectors arrived and it was fun listening to their opinions of the autograph pavilion and the signers.

The crowds didn't seem as large today and many of the dealers were still putting our their cards when the doors opened at 930am.

I tried to find some of the dealers from Net54. Even though I knew the booth numbers, i struggled to find them. Hopefully the National committee can find a way to make navigating the event a hit easier.

I.did.manage to complete my 1970T and 1974T sets and I found all but 1 card for my 1979 football sets. I found a good price on a really sharp 59T Frank Robinson and a few pins and some 64 Topps coins too.

I was targeting super rare stuff this week, but i found it pretty easy to get some good deals on commons and oddball cards. What surprisedme was some dealers thst were unwilling to negotiate on key cards. I sawndealee after dealer with 5, 8 or 10 1959T Mantles and they priced them above market comps and were unwillingto negotiate with any sort of realism. Thats OK and i thanked them for showing the cards and moved on.
It just struck me that there is either an abundance of buyerswithmore money than sense or.many dealers are simply deluded. Maybe a bit of both. Your mileage may vary.

For the things, I was buying, if I bought a number of things, dealers would round the figure down to the nearest round number. 128 became 120, etc. But I was able to negotiate 20 - 30% off much of the time without too much bother.

There were some sets that i was hoping to find but struggled. For example I only found 2 dealers with 1967 Dexter Press and their selection was VERY limited. I only found 1 deal with Star-Cal Decals. But I might have missed those items if they were bought up on Thu and Fri.

I left the show at 1145am to go check out of my hotel and I have another 4 hours at the airport until my flight.

What a great event! I've enjoyed it massively. I'm unlikely to get to Cleveland next year unless I have an unexpected reason to fly from London to Ohio. But I was able to process my set building mpre in the past 2 days than I've been able to do in the past 2 years