Sharp Elbows necessary in this hobby?

[Exhibitman]

Not limited to the patrons, unfortunately. In 1991 I am sitting a table at a show when a collector standing at the division between my table and the one next to me asked for a common card. I had it and sold it to him for a few bucks. The dealer next to me--pig man in a mumu--threatened to kick my ass for taking a sale away from him. Nevermind that the guy didn't ask him for the card.

[bbcard1]

It's a wonder that the card hobby is still alive with the customer service practices of the modern dealer. I have far less problems with other customers than I do dealers who would prefer to talk on their cel phone and eat Arbys than sell me anything.

[D. Bergin]

Does anybody who sets up at shows ever have "The Tornado" show up at your table?

I haven't done a regular show circuit in nearly 20 years but still do one show a year.

I have lots of photo albums, memorabilia, books and little knick knacks. Inevitably I run into about 3-4 "Tornado's" per show. This is the guy who comes by your table, literally touches everything. Leaves all of your photo and card albums out of place, any singles boxes are left in a completely different order, stuff on display is turned upside down, sideways or on top of something else, he'll even reshuffle your display case if you're stupid enough to leave it open, like myself.

He rarely spends money before he's on his way to plunder the next table and you have to spend the next 15 minutes cleaning up after him to get your table back in a little bit of order.

[bh3443]

I ran shows over 4 decades and I've seen it all.
The elbow issue is a regular thing. I had on one occasion witnessed a fist fight over who was going to look at a box of 1989 Leaf singles next. My security broke it up but not before several punches were thrown and landed.
Our shows opened at 9am but for an extra dollar you could get in at 8:30. The early bird special was well intentioned but it caused many arguments over who looked at what first. It also caused the old :I'll buy those and I'll be back in 1/2 hour which usually meant never will I return! More yelling erupted.
Elbowing was the least of our worries when dealers used the bellman's cart and dollies as weapons and blockades keeping everyone away from their tables before these few dealers were ready for business, usually well after the show opened I must ad. I saw a dealer (more than once) ram a cart into another dealer or collector.
I always tried to see the good in everyone. However, pure evil exists in some hobbyists. Over the years I witnessed dealers and collectors clash in words and punches over silly things that translated into "I hate the world, so everyone's going to fel my wraith."
I tried reasoning with the problem hobbyists, however, I ended up doubling my security staff to eject those few that tried to ruin the events for everyone.

The worst part is that our shows were family events and therefore my family and other families saw these despicable displays of childish and sometimes violent and vulgar displays.

In closing, a bargain box could cause some real ugliness at a show!

[NATCARD]

Seeing Bill post a thread made me want to chime in....
No being in the business for over 30 years and for 20 of them as a full timer and most of those years at Rotman Collectibles I have issue with this. A collector walks in off the street with a collection to sell. It is a fantastic collection and you are not 5 minutes into looking through it when "Other Dealers" get hawk eyes and are creating in their minds any one of a million ways they may be able to get this guy away from my table. They even at times will stand just feet away from me and the collector and yet 100's of feet away from their own tables. They are like piranhas. I am not saying all of them but there are some that will stoop to this level or I am sure worse.

Jeff W

[bh3443]

Jeff, that is SOOOOOOO right! I can remember several times at Rotman's visiting you as we picked up our supplies and seeling the very same dealers YOU took care of week after week trying to scam you and interupt your deals.

It was down right embarrassing and insulting. Here I was just trying to "do the right thing" and say hello to you, my oldest and dearest friend in our hobby and there are our customers trying to cause mayhem in YOUR OFFICE!

Well, at least you and I have clean conscious' concerning our behavior in our chosen vocation! Jeff, you are the best. I value our friendship more than anything.

Barry Arnold will be proud of us when he reads this, too!

Another note, Jeff would take out a several hundred dollar ad that he was buying everything at my shows. Then Jeff sets up and the other dealers start trying to horn in on Jeff's deals and even attempt to ruin our life-long friendship! Jeff and I work well together and it is sad that these few people could care less about what we made in decades over a single purchase to bust us up as friends!

Like Jeff said, it was a few, but man, those few drove us nuts! I'm proud to say that NOTHING ever came between Jeff and I and we are closer than ever these days! Jeff's like a brother.... he is the best!

I still send Jeff leads on collections, as recent as the other day!

[Tim Kindler]

Jeff,
When you brought up the "hawks" coming over and trying to cut in on your buying of a collection at your table, at least they were other dealers who paid for the right to buy someone's collection. I certainly agree that this is very poor etiquette and is disgraceful if you are a fellow dealer doing this to another dealer, but I got a beef with what I consider is a worse situation.

I did a show in Ohio last month where everytime someone would come in to sell to the dealers set up, a customer who was at the show hanging around for about 4 hours was "Hawking". The moment he saw someone selling stuff, even though they just got there and only one dealer had a crack at the stuff, he would wait until after they were done at their first table and then corral them over to a vacant table and go through their stuff and offer to buy them as if he were a dealer who paid to set up there. I told the show promoter that this was BS and was going to piss alot of dealers off who pay to set up and pay for the right to buy collections at a show. If I was the promoter, I would have told him to stop or get out, or better yet, pay your money and set up a table!. Now, if none of the dealers wanted to buy the stuff and he wanted to buy them in the parking lot or in the lobby of the hotel, so be it, you can't control that, but dealers pay for the right to have first cracks at a seller's collection at a show in my opinion.

Tim