Sunday, January 29, 2023, Civic Center, Orland Park, IL
Doing the show Saturday in Rockford and dealing with a treacherous two-hour ride home really took a lot out of me. I could not wake up Sunday morning and left the house much later than I had wanted.
Thankfully, the roads were nice and clear down to Orland. Just a little wet. It was much colder on Sunday and I had a chilly load in. I had eight display cases Saturday in Rockford; I was able to fit 12 in Orland where I have more space. I actually brought 13 cases but did not have enough space to get that last one out.
It took me forever to fill all those cases with cards. I usually don't worry about it in Orland because the crowd normally arrives late. Figures that everyone was early on this day. I was deluged with people at the halfway point of loading the cases. I think I finished around 9:45 a.m. I gotta get to the show much earlier next time I do the display case thing!
I had priced a nice pile of new stuff for the weekend and was happy to get it all out in Orland. While I was loading the cases, my pals Will and Joe arrived with coffee and sausage McMuffins. Thanks guys! The sandwiches were cold by the time I got to them but I needed the sustenance.
Big crowd early on once again. Like I said, I was surprised to be busy early on. It seemed like everybody and their mother wanted my vintage hockey cards. I sold a bunch yesterday in Rockford and just about sold the rest of them in Orland. Hockey has always been a good seller for me but never like this!
I have a nice backstock of hockey from 1968 through the 1980's but not much prior to '68. Older hockey is really hard to come by. I just loaded up my binder from 1976-77 hockey and will have it out at the February 26 Orland show.
There was also a lot of interest in my older basketball and sold some of those. Sold some of the usual suspects in football like Jim Brown and Bart Starr. My good buddy from Berwyn dropped some coin on a 1955 Topps Duke Snider and a 1955 Bowman Bob Feller. Thank you!
Will purchased a pile of stuff, including a 1975 Topps George Brett rookie. Thanks Will! I've got one regular customer who likes the oddball stuff and he purchased my 1952 Wheaties George Mikan. The big winner today was my pal Tony Schaefer, who purchased a nice pile of stuff including some T205s. Thanks Other Tony!
It sort of felt like I was busier at the last Orland show two weeks ago but when I got home and counted up my cash, I actually had a better show this time around. Woot! The Orland show never fails. Did I say that I am a huge fan of this show? Rich, the promoter, does hourly drawings where the winners receive a $25 gift certificate. I had two different customers pay me with the gift certificates which Rich redeems for all the dealers.
On the buying front, I purchased a stack of 1968 Topps baseball and a 1962 Topps Switch Hitter Connects PSA 3. I met Bob from Batavia, who was shopping a 1953 Bowman baseball set but I did not have the funds. Bob said he is a fan of this blog. Thanks Bob! Bob and I have a mutual friend in Ed Demask, who grew up in Lombard, IL, and now lives in Batavia. Ed and I were cub reporters for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago back in 1990. We were more like partners in crime. Back in those days, cub reporters were shunned by the rest of the newspaper staff and given the worst jobs. Ed and I had to rotate each night sitting in the basement of the DuPage County Court House in Wheaton, IL, pulling all the criminal files for the police blotter.
Generally, at the Herald, Ed and I kept to ourselves and goofed off and often hit the bars after work together. I still have Ed's thesaurus that he gifted me when I left the Herald for the Des Plaines Times in 1992. Ed is the only one from those days at the Herald who I am still in touch with. My friend Patrick Kampert worked at the Herald but he was at the Chicago Tribune by the time I started covering the Wheaton Park District Board meetings for the Herald.
A couple more Herald stories... Sometimes I would write up the police blotter the next day after I gathered all the info from the courthouse. The cheap asses at the Herald paid me per crime I wrote up in the blotter. So, I would spend hours at the courthouse gathering details on as many crimes as I could. This one morning, some guy called me and begged that I don't put his crime in the blotter. At first, I did not know what he was talking about then went through my notes and saw he was arrested for flashing his wiener.
"Hell no," I told him after I learned of his misdeed. Scumbag was outed by my police blotter! I hope he lost his job and kept it in his pants after that! Creep!
My worst experience at the Herald was being assigned to a Glen Ellyn Park Board budget meeting where I had to arrive at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning and stay until noon, then go back to the newsroom and write up several stories based on the meeting. Ugh! Then there was the time I was assigned to report about the intricacies of judging goat udders at the DuPage County Fair. I was the butt of every joke in the newsroom for the longest time after that!
Anyway, back to the Orland show. I was wiped out after the show on Sunday and skipped the sub shop. I was actually supposed to go Downtown and have dinner with my folks but I was just too tired. I went home and passed out.
Regardless, it was another great Orland show. A big thank you to Rich and his helpers, who treat me so well. I love these folks! Also a big thank you to everyone who bought cards from me. You guys rock!
Next Orland show is February 26 and I plan to bring the binders for that one.
I hope to see everyone this coming Saturday, February 4, 2023, at my show at the Salvation Army, 8853 S. Howell, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Once again, I will have 180 tables spread out in five different rooms. Tons of vintage dealers. Come on out and fill your sets!!
On a sad note, I was crushed to learn that Bobby Hull died on Monday. Bobby Hull was my first sports hero. I know I told this story before but it is worth mentioning again: when I was a wee lad, the Blackhawks away games were on UHF Channel 44, the Hawks owner "Dollar Bill" Wirtz was too cheap to put the home games on and expected everyone to attend those games and purchase his overpriced swill beer.
Anyway, my older brother would place me in front of our small black and white TV that we had in the kitchen and ordered me to yell to him whenever Hull was heading toward the opposing team's net with the puck. Seems like I yelled to him every few minutes. It was exciting to watch. Hull was a beast. You could see the fear in the opposing goalies as that Hull slap shot came at their heads at more than 100 MPH.
I was devastated when Hull left the Hawks for the WHA. I watched him years later when he finished out his career with the Hawks but it was not the same.
I was lucky to run into Bobby Hull at some point just about every year. Last year, I must have seen him five or six times. He signed autographs at the Orland show regularly. Then I saw him three or four days in a row at Harrah's in Atlantic City this past summer. RIP Mr. Hull and thanks for being so nice and accommodating whenever I saw you. Seems like all of my childhood sports heroes are gone. Sad times.
Doing the show Saturday in Rockford and dealing with a treacherous two-hour ride home really took a lot out of me. I could not wake up Sunday morning and left the house much later than I had wanted.
Thankfully, the roads were nice and clear down to Orland. Just a little wet. It was much colder on Sunday and I had a chilly load in. I had eight display cases Saturday in Rockford; I was able to fit 12 in Orland where I have more space. I actually brought 13 cases but did not have enough space to get that last one out.
It took me forever to fill all those cases with cards. I usually don't worry about it in Orland because the crowd normally arrives late. Figures that everyone was early on this day. I was deluged with people at the halfway point of loading the cases. I think I finished around 9:45 a.m. I gotta get to the show much earlier next time I do the display case thing!
I had priced a nice pile of new stuff for the weekend and was happy to get it all out in Orland. While I was loading the cases, my pals Will and Joe arrived with coffee and sausage McMuffins. Thanks guys! The sandwiches were cold by the time I got to them but I needed the sustenance.
Big crowd early on once again. Like I said, I was surprised to be busy early on. It seemed like everybody and their mother wanted my vintage hockey cards. I sold a bunch yesterday in Rockford and just about sold the rest of them in Orland. Hockey has always been a good seller for me but never like this!
I have a nice backstock of hockey from 1968 through the 1980's but not much prior to '68. Older hockey is really hard to come by. I just loaded up my binder from 1976-77 hockey and will have it out at the February 26 Orland show.
There was also a lot of interest in my older basketball and sold some of those. Sold some of the usual suspects in football like Jim Brown and Bart Starr. My good buddy from Berwyn dropped some coin on a 1955 Topps Duke Snider and a 1955 Bowman Bob Feller. Thank you!
Will purchased a pile of stuff, including a 1975 Topps George Brett rookie. Thanks Will! I've got one regular customer who likes the oddball stuff and he purchased my 1952 Wheaties George Mikan. The big winner today was my pal Tony Schaefer, who purchased a nice pile of stuff including some T205s. Thanks Other Tony!
It sort of felt like I was busier at the last Orland show two weeks ago but when I got home and counted up my cash, I actually had a better show this time around. Woot! The Orland show never fails. Did I say that I am a huge fan of this show? Rich, the promoter, does hourly drawings where the winners receive a $25 gift certificate. I had two different customers pay me with the gift certificates which Rich redeems for all the dealers.
On the buying front, I purchased a stack of 1968 Topps baseball and a 1962 Topps Switch Hitter Connects PSA 3. I met Bob from Batavia, who was shopping a 1953 Bowman baseball set but I did not have the funds. Bob said he is a fan of this blog. Thanks Bob! Bob and I have a mutual friend in Ed Demask, who grew up in Lombard, IL, and now lives in Batavia. Ed and I were cub reporters for the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago back in 1990. We were more like partners in crime. Back in those days, cub reporters were shunned by the rest of the newspaper staff and given the worst jobs. Ed and I had to rotate each night sitting in the basement of the DuPage County Court House in Wheaton, IL, pulling all the criminal files for the police blotter.
Generally, at the Herald, Ed and I kept to ourselves and goofed off and often hit the bars after work together. I still have Ed's thesaurus that he gifted me when I left the Herald for the Des Plaines Times in 1992. Ed is the only one from those days at the Herald who I am still in touch with. My friend Patrick Kampert worked at the Herald but he was at the Chicago Tribune by the time I started covering the Wheaton Park District Board meetings for the Herald.
A couple more Herald stories... Sometimes I would write up the police blotter the next day after I gathered all the info from the courthouse. The cheap asses at the Herald paid me per crime I wrote up in the blotter. So, I would spend hours at the courthouse gathering details on as many crimes as I could. This one morning, some guy called me and begged that I don't put his crime in the blotter. At first, I did not know what he was talking about then went through my notes and saw he was arrested for flashing his wiener.
"Hell no," I told him after I learned of his misdeed. Scumbag was outed by my police blotter! I hope he lost his job and kept it in his pants after that! Creep!
My worst experience at the Herald was being assigned to a Glen Ellyn Park Board budget meeting where I had to arrive at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning and stay until noon, then go back to the newsroom and write up several stories based on the meeting. Ugh! Then there was the time I was assigned to report about the intricacies of judging goat udders at the DuPage County Fair. I was the butt of every joke in the newsroom for the longest time after that!
Anyway, back to the Orland show. I was wiped out after the show on Sunday and skipped the sub shop. I was actually supposed to go Downtown and have dinner with my folks but I was just too tired. I went home and passed out.
Regardless, it was another great Orland show. A big thank you to Rich and his helpers, who treat me so well. I love these folks! Also a big thank you to everyone who bought cards from me. You guys rock!
Next Orland show is February 26 and I plan to bring the binders for that one.
I hope to see everyone this coming Saturday, February 4, 2023, at my show at the Salvation Army, 8853 S. Howell, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Once again, I will have 180 tables spread out in five different rooms. Tons of vintage dealers. Come on out and fill your sets!!
On a sad note, I was crushed to learn that Bobby Hull died on Monday. Bobby Hull was my first sports hero. I know I told this story before but it is worth mentioning again: when I was a wee lad, the Blackhawks away games were on UHF Channel 44, the Hawks owner "Dollar Bill" Wirtz was too cheap to put the home games on and expected everyone to attend those games and purchase his overpriced swill beer.
Anyway, my older brother would place me in front of our small black and white TV that we had in the kitchen and ordered me to yell to him whenever Hull was heading toward the opposing team's net with the puck. Seems like I yelled to him every few minutes. It was exciting to watch. Hull was a beast. You could see the fear in the opposing goalies as that Hull slap shot came at their heads at more than 100 MPH.
I was devastated when Hull left the Hawks for the WHA. I watched him years later when he finished out his career with the Hawks but it was not the same.
I was lucky to run into Bobby Hull at some point just about every year. Last year, I must have seen him five or six times. He signed autographs at the Orland show regularly. Then I saw him three or four days in a row at Harrah's in Atlantic City this past summer. RIP Mr. Hull and thanks for being so nice and accommodating whenever I saw you. Seems like all of my childhood sports heroes are gone. Sad times.
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