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The Fifth And Final Day of the 2013 National Sports Collectors Convention

8/4/2013

11 Comments

 
I have been home for a little while now. I finally went out and unloaded the van. Unloading the van after the National is a bear because I have extra stuff like seven card tables, an extra bin of cards, and a pile of tarps.  I'm tired. It was a grueling five days.

A lot of dealers didn't bother showing up today and many more left by noon. Also, today's show had the smallest attendance of all five days. This was probably the lightest Sunday crowd of any National I have ever attended. Thankfully, the collectors were back today and I had a steady stream of sales. Sales were up. I don't know what happened yesterday. There was a big crowd but most dealers I talked to had an off day on Saturday. I big thank you to Andy and his son for making my day. They spent a few hours at my table. Andy's young son is working on a 1973 Topps baseball set and a 1970 Topps football set. It seemed like Andy was working on a lot of upgrades. Too bad I only get to see these guys once a year because they live in Florida.

Quite a few other guys visited my table today. A guy from New York purchased my 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson. Another guy from New York picked up a 1954 Topps Phil Rizzuto. A guy from Iowa purchased several hundred 1970 Topps baseball. My tablemate, the other Tony, purchased some cards from me as well today. One of the dealers next to me purchased a bunch of football rookies. I had quite a few other guys dinking around buying cards all day. It all added up and I was very happy. There were also the OBC guys who made some scattered purchases. A minor rant about the OBC guys. Many of them this year would only pay 5 to 7 percent of book for cards. Needless to say, I didn't sell much or anything to those few guys. I'm a little disappointed with those OBC guys only willing to pay 5 to 7 percent of book. They need to realize that dealers can't purchase their inventory at 5 to 7 percent of book so how can we sell them to you at that price? Most of the OBC guys are reasonable and terrific. There are a select few, though, that are a little ridiculous.

On the buying front, sellers were much more reasonable today. The dealer across the way offered me a binder of football cards from 1952 to 1963. The cards booked out at $4,700. The condition was way off grade and we couldn't agree on a price. I forgot this dealer's name but I've seen him for years at the National and at the Sun-Times show. He's a nice guy but was just a tad too high with these football cards. A guy came near the end of the show who was incredibly reasonable on a stack of star cards that included a pair of 1959 Eddie Mathews, a '62 Lou Brock rookie, a '62 Aaron, a '62 Eddie Mathews, a '62 Spahn, a '64 Koufax and a bunch of other stuff that I can't recall. The cards are still buried in my bins somewhere. I also purchased the latest Beckett football annual for $25 from the Beckett booth. The thing lists for $35. I would have purchased the annuals for the other sports if they would have been cheaper. At the 2010 National, Beckett was selling all their annuals for just $10 a pop.

I made it through the five days without having lost anything to theft.  Though, I heard a dealer lost a binder with a complete 1960 Topps baseball set today. I know I have some young readers of my blog so I won't say the four-letter words I'm thinking about at the moment. The folks who run the National really need to hire security for the show. They're charging 20 bucks for admission and $1,100-plus for booths. Spend some of that money making this thing secure for your dealers!

I visited the Expoteria for the last time this morning and enjoyed some bacon and eggs. I'm going to miss that place. I was also a little melancholy this morning knowing this was the last day I was going to be surrounded by the most amazing assortment of vintage sports cards in the world. I may complain about this or that but when it comes right down to it the National is AWESOME! I was also lucky to spend that past five days with the best tablemates you can find in Jim and Scott Ziegert, Tony Schaefer and Dave McDonald. Thanks guys for a terrific five days!

Dave and I are talking about teaming up to do the National next year in Cleveland. I'm pretty sure we're going to do it. Time to plan for the next one! In the meantime, I'm taking a couple of weeks off and will be back at it for the August 25 Orland show. My next project is reloading 1955 Topps All American football and 1963 Topps baseball. I can't thank enough all the guys that purchased and sold me cards these past five days. You guys are the best! THANK YOU!!!!


11 Comments
Chris
8/4/2013 11:14:02 pm

What is an OBC?

Reply
Tony
8/5/2013 08:00:11 am

Old Baseball Cards. They're a collectors group. Generally nice guys but a few of them are a little off-base on the amount they're willing to spend on a card.

Reply
Andy
8/7/2013 12:06:30 pm

Tony,
Thanks again for the great deals and the great directions! Ryan and I had a great time. He also got a nice deal on a '73 Mays and '70 Namath on the way out.
See you next year.

Reply
Tony
8/7/2013 12:39:42 pm

Hey Andy,

Always great to see you and Ryan. Tell Ryan that Spider Lockhart's real name is Carl.

Hope the rest of your trip is great!

Reply
Tim (from Madison)
8/12/2013 11:48:13 am

Hi Tony,

Great to see you at the National. I had an awesome day there on Friday and found some really good deals. Its also just a fun time talking with everyone. I'm really hoping to make it to Cleveland next year with a few friends for more than one day and hoping to make it to the Gonzaga show in September. Also my friend was Wes from Akron and I know him from vintagecardtraders.com and OBC. Thanks as always.

Reply
Tony
8/12/2013 12:37:58 pm

Tim, it was great to see you too! Thanks for bringing Wes over. I had a great time as well. I'm already making plans for Cleveland. I'll see you in September!!

Reply
Billy
8/19/2013 11:25:29 am

A little disappointing to see the rant about OBCers. I've been to a couple of Nationals when they used to come to Anaheim, and I know that the show draws collectors from all over the country. I've got to assume that most collectors are on some sort of budget, and to call out those few guys that are willing to spend "only" 5-7% of "book" isn't right.

Maybe those guys are trying to make their dollars stretch as far as humanly possible after paying for airfare, rooms, meals, entry, etc. Lots of collectors don't have anything resembling a card show where they're from, so they scrimp and save to get to the biggest show of them all.

You should be happy there's a market for lower-end cards at all. You may not have paid that little for them (but I bet you paid that or less for many of them), but having them there draws people to your table and maybe gets them looking at some of your other stuff.

Reply
Tony
8/19/2013 01:17:10 pm

Billy, let's take a rational look at your comments.

First off, I am not wealthy. I sell cards to supplement my income and also because I absolutely love vintage sports cards. The only way I get to continue to do the thing that I love, is to sell my cards for more than I paid for them. Now, I don't need to get rich but I must make more than I spend or I won't have the funds to stay in business.

I think I can best illustrate my point by crunching a few numbers. First off, I can rarely purchase vintage cards for less than 15 percent of book. For simplicity, let's say I only stock cards that book for $100. For me to stay in business, I need to sell that card for $20 because I paid $15 and I need that $5 profit. That profit goes into the kitty so I can purchase more cards, pay for table fee, supplies, food, gas, etc. I'm not even going to put a dollar amount on the tremendous amount of time I spend tracking down leads to purchase cards, negotiating the purchase, then pricing each and every card on my table, sorting them by year and placing them in numerical order.

So, according to your logic, I should sell that same $100 card to the OBC guy for $5 and lose $15 on each sale. I know I should be happy that there are guys willing to help me lose $15 on each sale but how do you propose I stay in business?

I don't mind giving a guy a deal but to expect a price that is less than half of what I myself paid for the cards lacks any and all sense of common courtesy, and any sense of decency.

Reply
Bob
8/19/2013 10:41:42 pm

Hi

I'm one of the OBCers, wasn't at Chicago but was at the last few Nationals and will be at Cleveland. Sorry if we tick you off. This hobby has all sorts of types of collectors from PSA10 guys down to us lowly OBCers looking to buy a 1960 Mantle for $10 (got one at last National, not sure what % of book that is). I'll be in Cleveland next year and will make sure I stay away from your both so as not to upset you. I'm sure many other OBCers will do the same.

thanks

Bob

Reply
Tony
8/19/2013 11:23:50 pm

Sorry to hurt your feelings Bob, but I can't sell my cards for less than I paid for them. You guys can start a little crusade against me, that's fine. But you're going to find more and more dealers not willing to deal with you. I wasn't the only dealer complaining about OBC. You guys need to rethink your strategy and offer a fair price.

Reply
ted
9/1/2013 12:17:11 am

If you OBC people would have bought cards for what they are worth instead of being the cheapass' you are,maybe the National would come to California again.

Reply



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    Tony Gordon

    Vintage Sports Cards Addict

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