Well, that is a bit of an understatement It was actually been 26 years between card shows for me since the last one I attended was in Albany NY where I went to get Jim Brown's auto.
The show was in Syracuse, and was a decent sized show. However, there were not a lot of customers. There were a lot of people trying to sell cards but I did not see too many active buyers. I'd say the show was 90% newer material and 10% vintage. From what I noticed the vintage dealers..........and these were a couple of big time guys..... were not all that busy. The newer cards were mostly graded and I'd hear outrageous figures thrown out for some of those card's values. With dollar figures like that, I'd have thought they were talking Mantle and Mays but it was the current crop of suspects.
The constant checking of the cell phone for each card has to be a bit tiring. Luckily, I did not have to deal with that since I was only dealing in raw cards. And it is funny to see the difference between what an 8 is for a modern card (crap) vs what an 8 is for a vintage card (Gold!). I can see where that is a necessity though as my friend bought a PSA 3 1955 Mays and a PSA 3 Mickey Mantle for $500. I would have thought that was a bad buy (I mean they are 3s for cripes sake!!) but the PS 3 Mays has been selling for over what he paid for the pair and in a few reacnt cases WAY over what he paid for the pair.
One thing I notiuced on the newer, graded stuff was what my brother told me which was ""Deal for the card, not the grade". A few of the cards my friend was trading off were turned down because the dealer would notice flaws on a highly graded card when he looked at them under a good light and a magnifying glass. That makles me a little leery of graded cards since I have seen the same thing with graded vintage cards myself.
I will say that the lighting in that place was awful!! The further into the room I went the worse it got. I was really surprised about that. Thankfully, the one dealer I specifically went to the show to see was in the front right near the big windows so lighting was not a factor.
I don't go to card shows because for me it an ineffective way to acquire cards. This one dealer friend of mine owed me a fair amount in cards and we live 3 hours away from each other so this was a most convenient way to finish off a deal we had made last year. THis dealer is super trustworthy and I never hd the slightest worry about not getting caught up. It was quite nice to go into a card show with what amounted to a decent sized gift certificate and I was super happy with what I got.
I will say there are still good deals to be had in vintage cards if you shop around. But because people ae so enamored with the new Optic, Prizim, orange, pink, refractor, X fractor, non factor, numbered to minus 10 of the latest "hot" thing some quality stuff just sits there on dealers tables, People ddon't realize that todays "hot thing" is soon to be yesterday's news.
The show was in Syracuse, and was a decent sized show. However, there were not a lot of customers. There were a lot of people trying to sell cards but I did not see too many active buyers. I'd say the show was 90% newer material and 10% vintage. From what I noticed the vintage dealers..........and these were a couple of big time guys..... were not all that busy. The newer cards were mostly graded and I'd hear outrageous figures thrown out for some of those card's values. With dollar figures like that, I'd have thought they were talking Mantle and Mays but it was the current crop of suspects.
The constant checking of the cell phone for each card has to be a bit tiring. Luckily, I did not have to deal with that since I was only dealing in raw cards. And it is funny to see the difference between what an 8 is for a modern card (crap) vs what an 8 is for a vintage card (Gold!). I can see where that is a necessity though as my friend bought a PSA 3 1955 Mays and a PSA 3 Mickey Mantle for $500. I would have thought that was a bad buy (I mean they are 3s for cripes sake!!) but the PS 3 Mays has been selling for over what he paid for the pair and in a few reacnt cases WAY over what he paid for the pair.
One thing I notiuced on the newer, graded stuff was what my brother told me which was ""Deal for the card, not the grade". A few of the cards my friend was trading off were turned down because the dealer would notice flaws on a highly graded card when he looked at them under a good light and a magnifying glass. That makles me a little leery of graded cards since I have seen the same thing with graded vintage cards myself.
I will say that the lighting in that place was awful!! The further into the room I went the worse it got. I was really surprised about that. Thankfully, the one dealer I specifically went to the show to see was in the front right near the big windows so lighting was not a factor.
I don't go to card shows because for me it an ineffective way to acquire cards. This one dealer friend of mine owed me a fair amount in cards and we live 3 hours away from each other so this was a most convenient way to finish off a deal we had made last year. THis dealer is super trustworthy and I never hd the slightest worry about not getting caught up. It was quite nice to go into a card show with what amounted to a decent sized gift certificate and I was super happy with what I got.
I will say there are still good deals to be had in vintage cards if you shop around. But because people ae so enamored with the new Optic, Prizim, orange, pink, refractor, X fractor, non factor, numbered to minus 10 of the latest "hot" thing some quality stuff just sits there on dealers tables, People ddon't realize that todays "hot thing" is soon to be yesterday's news.
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