Everybody knows that it is winter and the chance of snow, wind, bitter cold is high. However, the folks that issue weather reports resort to hysteria and consistent false forecasts. I have learned to ignore the weather reports.
All day Friday, I saw the reports calling for freezing rain and slick roads for Saturday. My drive to Rockford on Saturday occurred under sunny skies, a little cold, but a beautiful day for January in northern Illinois.
Looks like there are a lot of others that, like me, don't take these weather reports all too seriously because we had a really nice crowd at the Rockford show. There was some sleet and some light sprinkles on the drive home but nothing too bad. The roads were fine. My drive home was fine.
So after bringing out binders to this show the past two months, I changed it up and placed eight display cases on my tables. I filled the cases with baseball from 1909 to 1968 along with football from 1948 to 1968.
I was located next to Skip and behind Tom. We have a nice number of vintage dealers at this show now which I think helps me greatly because vintage customers don't want to see just one vintage dealer. There were at least six of us with vintage on our tables. I think the word is getting out that there is vintage at this show. I had some really nice sales.
There was a young guy who bought a bunch of cards from me last month who was set up on this day. Nice guy. He came over and purchased just about all of my T206s. A new customer purchased my 1964 Topps Willie Mays. Skip purchased some 1959 White Sox. A father and son team purchased a bunch of Duke Snider cards, various years. There was another guy who bought a bunch of cards from me last month and this time he spent a good hour at my table and purchased a pile of cards from all years.
While I was helping the one guy go through all of my cases, another guy showed up and asked to see some of my Mantles. Already, I had quite a few guys look at the Mantles but none pulled the trigger. I did not recognize this guy and I assumed he was window shopping like the others. That will teach me! He purchased three Mantles. I was ready to go home but I stayed and sold more cards! Great day in Rockford! My best Rockford show to date!!
I did not buy anything at this show but was able to pay off the cards I bought last month from Terry Hatch. Not much brought to my table. One guy tried to sell me a 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey but I must have a dozen of them and don't need any more.
The local Rockford NBC station stopped by the show and posted a nice little write up on their website. Link to the story below:
Various collectibles on sale Saturday in Rockford | Top Stories | wrex.com
Next Rockford show is on February 12. Don't listen to the weather report!!
Next up for me is my show on January 15 at the Salvation Army Community Center, 8853 S. Howell, Oak Creek, WI. I am leaning towards a display case set up. I brought binders to the December Oak Creek show. I have a really nice inventory of vintage football cards and want to show it off. I'll probably do two or three display cases of football then one case of basketball and hockey and the rest I'll fill up with baseball, maybe 1960's on.
Hope to see you Saturday in Oak Creek!!
Pictured below is my offensive line at the Rockford show.