Favorite Dealer(s) at the National

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Ron Vitro was a pleasure to deal with; got some great vintage photos.

John Billingsley is always a class act and I had my biggest value purchase from him.

Steve Verkman was very reasonable at this show; I picked up a trio of nice cards from his table at a very good price.

The guys from Amazing Adventures in S.F. had just about the only nice PCL stuff I was able to locate and were very pleasant to deal with. And I didn't have to pay CA sales tax this time

John Gay, who is a boxing dealer from Sacramento, had a table and gave me the best deal of the weekend on a stack of tougher exhibits I needed, plus that Matty postcard.

Next to the N54 nest at Scott and Leon's I probably had the most fun hanging out at JJ Johnston's table. JJ is an author and actor from Chicago originally who was selling his book on Chicago boxing, selling rare fight posters, and generally telling tall tales of Hollywood and boxing.

Only real bummer I had was with a rather sour dealer who had an incredibly bad rug and who charged me sales tax on a cash sale on an already overpriced card; like he's gonna remit. If it hadn't been a real rarity that I absolutely had to have for my exhibit collection and my research, I'd have walked. And that thing on his head; it wasn't just a bad toupee, it was an incredibly bad one. Looked like Sylvio's (Sopranos) pompadour gone gray. I mean, that sucker was so hat-like I expected to see ear flaps. In Cleveland he had about a dozen entertainment exhibits, all vastly overpriced but tough, and refused to deal even a buck on them. I have to admit that it did my heart good to see the same damn cards in his snowcase at Chicago. I hope to see them again in Anaheim Eventually, inflation will cause his prices to catch up with reality. I expect to buy the cards in 2010.