Observations from the Card Show Front Lines - UPDATED!!!

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by obcbeatle

This is friggin' hilarious , you made me laugh more than once, something hard to do these days, thanks for sharing !

Oh, so you're the person who read the post?
I thank you!
Just figured it must've been someone from my family.

(That's my way of saying that although the site has really gone down a wildly argumentative road, I'm still trying my damndest to provide a bit of entertainment.)

[raulus]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Oh, so you're the person who read the post?
I thank you!
Just figured it must've been someone from my family.

(That's my way of saying that although the site has really gone down a wildly argumentative road, I'm still trying my damndest to provide a bit of entertainment.)

Are you suggesting that wild arguments aren't entertaining?

If so, I've got a bone to pick with you!

[JollyElm]

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Since no one is reading this thread anyway, how about a further (new word) Elonganation of it with additional bonus material (so even more people can ignore it) for no one else’s amusement, apparently, but my own...




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1. Me and ‘Mize,’ a Cardboard Lunchtime Love Story
Hitting the jam-packed food court, we ended up at a long-ass, rectangular table that looked like a centerpiece of a Viking feast with 100 awful-looking people gnawing on the roasted bones of game as they knocked tankards of ale together.
(However, the difference is I doubt the Vikings were asking each other if their fresh kill was gluten-free.)

A group of guys next to us were regaled in the standard baseball card collector wear, so I asked (more of a statement than a question), “You guys here for the card show?”

With exuberance, “We sure are!! It’s (sounded like he said) Mize’s first time!!!”
Then, of course, they made hack jokes about him being a virgin...to my unamused face.

Turning to the Mizester, I asked, “How’d it go? Was it what you thought? Get any good stuff?”

He said, “Honestly, I’m so out of place. Everyone here could be my grandchildren. I’ve barely seen any old stuff, you know the cards I collected as a kid, and everyone here is so young.”

Then I saw his tell, the thing so many people do when their focus suddenly shifts to your face to judge how old you are to know if you’re both on the same (new word) ‘age-length’ to understand whatever reference he’s going to make.
(It was actually kind of a compliment this time. I’m worn down and growing older by the day, so the fact he didn’t immediately say, “Present company excepted,” and really had to look me over to see if I was nearly as old as him, gave me a needed lift.)

“The cards I loved the most are 1973, 1974 and especially the colorful 1975s. The A’s ruled the world!! My friends and I were trying to track down George Brett rookie cards the entire summer. So many great memories!”
(He might’ve noticed me smirking, because I damn well know that no one THAT SUMMER was tracking down Brett rookies, that came much later on. I even mentioned this offhandedly in a video I still need to finish up, but didn’t want to be rude.)

After chatting for a bit and before saying goodbye, he somewhat defeatedly added, “We just stopped for lunch, but we’re going back in. I haven’t bought anything and was really thinking this would be the live version of eBay. You know, with every cool card out there. A feast for the eyes.”

Trying to meet their hackiness, I said, “More of a starvation diet for the eyes, am I right??”
No reaction whatsoever. Bummer. The only thing I heard was the smacking lips of a thousand food court fatties.

Like the ‘January Gym People’ who join up to fulfill a New Year’s Resolution, but quickly stop going after a week, I highly doubt I’ll be seeing my buddy, Mize, at a show anytime soon.



2. A Noob’s Guide to Crazytown
While taking in the wild action of the modern card sector previously mentioned, I approached a busy dealer (who thankfully greeted me in English, because I don’t have Rosetta Stone) and asked, “What simple advice would you give someone who knows nothing about Pokémon cards that would help them begin collecting them?”

He said, “Undoubtedly, collect the first “hundred and fifty” (in researching it afterwards, I believe he meant 102) from the first release of 1999-2000, a couple of years after the Japanese version. It’s called the BS (I chuckled) or “Base Set.” From there you just lose your mind and have no clue what’s going on. You simply can’t keep up.”

I don’t wanna keep up. Still have no interest in them whatsoever.


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3. Bookmarks and Birthmarks
It seems the newest highly-touted ‘innovation’ at many tables this time ‘round was basically a bookmark to save your place while you thumbed through the packed rows of toploaders and slabs in a dealer’s box...and the sellers didn’t hesitate in bringing it to your attention.

It was reminiscent of the oft-told joke (it’s not really a joke, is it?):
Q: “How do you know someone’s a vegan?”
A: “Because they won’t stop telling you they are.”

When yet another seller was crowing about this great advancement in table management, he had the audacity to instruct me on how to use a bookmark, like I was a little kid, and I sat there puzzled.

First of all, I had my own (what I call a) ‘spot marker,’ which I’ve used for years RIGHT IN MY FRICKIN’ HAND (I generally cut up a large and useless - since attics are virtually non-existent out here - postcard mailer about attic clean-ups), so I was already doing exactly what he was ‘teaching’ me to do...right in front of his face! That was effin’ weird.

Secondly, (perhaps a little bit aggressively) I barked, “I’ve been using bookmarks to save spots ever since I stole one of my mom’s decorative ones to mark the ‘best’ pages in a Playboy that my friend and I liberated from the stash under his older brother’s bed!!” (Whoa!! TMI!!)

His slight hesitation told me visions of naked woman were suddenly dancing in his head, “Oh, sorry. It’s just that they’re carefully curated (never heard a card dealer use that term about a box of cards before) and in numerical order, but so many people just screw it up instead of paying attention to what they’re doing. It’s nothing personal.”

Perfectly understandeable. Okay, he’s a good guy after all.



4. Highs Jump
At the same guy’s table was a box of stunningly beautiful 1972 Topps commons, but the numbers abruptly (and expectedly) stopped with the upraised arms of Rudy May’s #656.

One guy asked, “You don’t have any high numbers here?”

“No, those are on eBay.” (With an unspoken, “Where they’ll actually sell at nice prices.”)

And here came a very telling exchange. “Wouldn’t they sell if you had good prices on them here?”

The dealer chuckled, most likely thinking about how cheap (to him personally) the general showgoer is, and said, “Good one.”


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5. What’s Your Sign (Literally)?
Walking up to this gentleman’s table, I was very honest and told him, “I’m just looking for laughs, so I gotta say your sign is quite non-specific...it might indicate you’re paying high amounts with that “BUYING (big space) UP TO 90%," but it doesn’t explain what those words mean.”

So I rattled off a few questions:
• “Are you buying up to 90% of all the cards shown to you?” (Shook his head no.)
• “Are you negotiating to buy cards, but 9/10 of the way through your pitch, you’ll just stop and move on to something else?” (My application of math in this instance seemed to confuse him.)
• “Is it 90% of book value, whatever that is these days?” (Shook his head no.)
• “90% of comps?” (Shook his head no again, which is weird. Wouldn’t it have to be one of those two things?)
• “90% of what the collector’s mom says they’re worth?” (Smiled.)
• “Or are you only buying trimmed cards? Get it? They’re missing a 1/10 piece?” (A glum look.)

Overall, he chuckled along with me, but it was time to stop beating a dead horse and I moved on...still ignorant of what “90%” stood for.


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6. Jamaalpractice
I ran across this card (it’s Warriorsville out here, says the sad Knicks fan) and come on now!!! It is definitely a finalist for the worst Hall of Fame rookie card of all time.
If this was a beauty contest, ‘Silk’ would be advancing to the swimsuit competition.


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Is it even up for debate? Look at it!!

In general, the photograph itself is an engaging mid-game shot, but no way does it belong on the front of a card. There are three players stuffed together, and the person whose card it is has the least amount of presence.
He’s scrunched between two Washington Bullets (with one, of course, being Wes Unseld, who appeared on about 90% of all basketball cards produced by Topps in the 70’s), and if the photo was snapped a microsecond later, Wilkes would be completely blocked out by their big bodies, as he stands obscured in the background.

The scene captured is like when one of my drunk friends would try to get back into the bar near closing time and a pair of massive bouncers would say, “Whoa!!! Hold on there, fellah!!” (Don’t recall many people speaking like cowboys in New York, but you understand the point.)

Plus, with the ball in the foreground rocketing towards the viewer, whenever someone picks up this card, his first inclination is to DUCK!!!!!
There is also the fact that the card features his birthname, Keith, so it’s not even truly a Jamaal Wilkes card.

A big-time airball on this one from Topps.




And that's all she wrote!! If a man named Mize asks you for a ‘spot marker’ while thumbing through your 1975 cards, tell him I miss him.