My day and a half at The National

[IndyDave]

Back home in Indy tonight after a day and a half at the National. Figured I would join the crowd with a quick recap of my experiences.

Left home around 7:20 Thursday morning and made a quick detour to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast and had just one quick rest area stop on the way to Chicago. I was parking right around 10:00 a.m. with the hour pickup when changing time zones.

I parked in the East garage and made a quick run across the skybridge to the Hyatt Regency to use their restroom. I got to the convention center about 10:15 and found a long line in the lobby snaking around 3 times to get to the ticket scanning station. After getting my ticket scanned, they were directing us in to the queue area to get a wristband, but after getting the wristband was sent back out to go enter the show. About 10-15 minutes from when I got in line, I entered the show.

My first 3 stops were the dealers at the show I do most of my business with. Chatted briefly with the guys at Kevin Savage Cards, then went to see JD Heckathorn. He had brought his inventory of Hostess panels at my request, but didn’t have anything I needed. I then went to the back of the hall to see the guys from local card shop, Indy Card Exchange. I had gone in the shop last week for their National preview to see what they were brining, but still wanted to say hi.

I started trying to logically look at the tables, but my discipline was not always the greatest. I concentrated on searching for my wants on Hostess panels and Red Man Tobacco. They aren’t the easiest to ship so I wanted to see what I can find. I made good progress on both during the show.

I had finished going to through a few boxes of oddball items on a dealer’s table. After paying for them, I noticed he had a few stacks of 1949 Bowman. I asked to go through them and he indicated his preference was to sell the full stack for $500. That set is about the only post war set where I need a large quantity of cards (other than 1952 Topps high numbers) and I haven’t bought a card lot in many years. We discussed what single pricing would be if I bought them and I started going through the stack. He said there were a lot of high numbers and there were. I went through them for five minutes counting how many cards I needed and realized that I needed enough of the cards to come close to spending the $500 ($4 lows, $8 highs). I bought the lot and put the box in my backpack. When I eventually sorted through the lot, there were 156 cards, 71 of which I needed, including 50 high numbers. I also think I will be able to upgrade a handful of my cards. I’ve not been particularly condition conscious with this set. I effectively got the extra cards for free – my brother gets a nice present.

Spent the rest of Thursday on smaller purchases – 3 1952 Topps, including 2 semi-highs, a couple of 1963 Fleer football and quite a few non-sports purchases, including 1972 Topps Presidents and Topps Man on the Moon cards. I finished off my Topps basketball trio stickers and bought a handful of 1970-71 Topps basketball posters, getting me with four of completion, with Earl Monroe being the priciest.

I stayed until closing, went to the Hyatt for a restroom stop before going back to my car. I wasn’t sure when I left home if I would come back Friday, so I needed to find a hotel for Thursday night. I used Marriott points to book a room out by Woodfield Mall, about 20 minutes west of the show. Checked in the hotel, ordered a pizza to go pickup and sorted through my cards.

Friday morning I got to the parking garage around 9:30 and after another Hyatt restroom stop, I was in the line around 9:45. Walked up immediately to get my ticket scanned and get a wristband. Then in to the huge queue to get in. Even Wimbledon, with their famous queue would be impressed at the size of the National queue. Once it started moving we kept moving and I was inside at 10:10

I bought some more Hostess panels, more Post Cereal baseball and a few 1957-58 basketball before continuing the search for the 3 cards on my hit list. I ended up buying one. 1961 Fleer Jim Brown was the success. Bought a nice raw card for $80. 1952 Topps Billy Martin was consistently priced higher than I wanted to pay – Yankee cards are always tough at shows. There weren’t that many around – I was looking to get the best copy I could in the $125-150 range and that answer was none. The third card on my hit list was 1951 Topps Redback Tommy Holmes, Boston variation. I found quite a few Hartford variations, but only one Boston – that was a graded version on one of the tables that seems to have cards priced to show and not sell.

The crowd Friday felt larger to me than Thursday’s crowd. One dealer told me the Thursday crowd was 18,000. No idea if that was accurate. The areas farthest from the front door seemed more crowded than the areas near the front. I suspect that was because there is a lot more vintage near the front door from the long tenured dealers and the back of the room was where you found most of the modern cards at the show. I did stop and introduce myself to Scott Brockelman and we chatted for about five minutes.

I had planned to leave no later than 3:00 and by 2:00 I was ready. I was getting grouchy and really didn’t feel like looking at anything else. I think I saw every table, but I’m sure I missed several. I didn’t bother with the corporate area, the autographs or the case break area. My last purchase on the way out the door was a box of horizontal three pocket sheets that I hope work for my Hostess panels.

To acknowledge the Covid elephant in the room. I’m 62, have some risk factors and am fully Pfizer vaccinated. I was one of the 5% - 10% wearing a mask. I have been very cautious throughout the pandemic – still have not eaten inside a restaurant, wear a mask in stores and in the restrooms and elevators at work. I went to the show with a great deal of trepidation, ready to walk out soon after I got there if I didn’t feel comfortable.

I never felt uncomfortable in the show. I’m not sure why. I probably trust the masks and vaccines more than I should have. I generally kept moving but there were a few tables where I lingered. I probably should’ve ordered some N95 masks, but I’m also not sure how well to trust anything that you can get online. Going was somewhat out of character for me.

The ride home was a giant PITA. Traffic on the Tri-State Tollway and Highway (294 & 80) was brutal. The ride home took 4:30 and that included the easiest I-65 drive in Indiana that I can remember. Getting to 65 was the problem. I had a good time, glad to be home and looking forward to getting all my purchases put away over the next few weeks.

I finished off a handful of sets: 1970 Topps Scratchoffs, 1970 Fleer World Series, 1971 Fleer World Series, 1971-72 Topps Basketball Trio Stickers, 1961 Fleer Football and 1969 Topps Football 4-in-1 booklets. I'm down to less than 20 in 4 Red Man baseball sets and got those two non-sport sets (US Presidents and Man on the Moon) to a handful of cards.