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Inside My Brain
08/8/2019
That was part of Upper Deck's corporate set up in the middle of the show.
Approaching this year's National yielded a bittersweet feeling in me. I've been down on this hobby, down on my place it in, and I wondered if this would be the last time I would set up and attend a National from the dealer side of the table. I was looking forward to visiting with dealers and customers...I was looking forward to pizza...and I was looking forward to hearing everyone's take on the trimming/doctoring scandal that has recently hit the fan in the market.
I had low expectations, and sometimes that's a good thing.
To set the scene, I was sharing a booth with Joe in our normal spot against the back wall. It doesn't get as much traffic, and we only have one neighbor. This year we were even more walled off, as JSA was in front of us across the aisle instead of dealers like in past years. They erected a black-cloth fortress around their work area and it gave us extra shelter. (Our neighbors didn't like that.)
I roomed about 10 minutes away from the show (hotels across the street sell out QUICKLY!) with James and his son who recently moved from St Louis to Nashville. James is hilarious and we spent the week yucking it up with food, quick trips, and having movies like Old School and Ocean's 8 (better than I remembered) on in the background at the hotel. His son asked us baseball trivia and talked about the boxes he broke during the day while his dad was working in the autograph area.
Believe it or not, the first night is the lone time we had pizza. That's definitely not how we planned it, but as the week got into gear, we often needed quicker meals so James could get work done at night. You may have noted that I didn't need to get work done at night. Nope, I sure didn't. This wasn't one of those up-all-night Nationals for me.
This is Gino's East pizza, and it is one of the best foods on the planet Earth:
Most other dinners are not really worthy of a mention, but here's a quick rundown:
Tues - Gino's East
Wed - local taco place (yum!)
Thurs - Steak N Shake
Fri - Joe's Seafood*
Sat - Subway
What's even less exciting is that I had a hot dog at the show for lunch every day! You know when you get a craving for a certain food? Yep, that was me. It had been a good long while since I'd had a hot dog, and I was ready to dig in. And every one was slightly worse than the last. That culminated on Saturday when customer traffic kept me from eating for about 45 minutes and my hot dog turned into a cold dog before I had a chance to eat it. It's fair to say I've had enough dogs for a while.
I've probably mentioned previously how the show has a "dealer lobby" featuring donuts and coffee before the show opens. Same this year. And the same thing happened... the first day no one really knows about it and you have a world of donuts to choose from. By Friday, arriving a half hour before the show floor opens to dealers yields you nothing except the real-life envisioning of what a donut shop would look like if it were overrun by wolverines. So either Saturday or Sunday I swung by Dunkin Donuts for my favorite coffee (still not addicted), a breakfast croissant, and a donut. So much easier.
Speaking of food, the biggest gamble of the week for me wasn't anything involving sportscards (and I didn't go to the nearby Rivers Casino). It was eating a leftover piece of pizza on Thursday morning. I didn't put together right away that our room fridge was never turned on, so I had to hope that nothing stomach-turning had started to grow in that delicious slice in a day and a half. Fortunately, everything turned out fine on that front.
Now, getting back to the asterisk from Friday night. A customer took me out for dinner after the show, and we went downtown by where he and his wife were staying. This is an event for me, because it takes about an hour of travel each way. But I can say that Joe's Seafood was excellent. I had shrimp and a slice of peanut butter pie. However, the exciting part of the meal is that Jon Lester and fam sat at the table kitty corner to us. Selfies and pics in general were discouraged, so I have nothing to show you. Oh well. I also had a tough time getting back to my hotel, as the El was jam-packed with sweaty weekend people. Seeing the train roll into my station so full that almost no one could board was not cool, but I grabbed a rather long Uber ride back and all was well.
So, what about the show???
The early couple days of the show were kinda boring actually. I didn't expect that. Sales were decent, but this has followed the past few years of less dealer-to-dealer action. There was discussion about PSA, PWCC, and the card doctors. And during the show, multiple dealers, AH runners, and internet sources report that the FBI issued subpeonas. Anymore, the full story can be read on message boards or Twitter, so I won't even bother to summarize. What struck me in talking to dealers is how open of a secret card doctoring is, and also the identities of those who do it. My feelings are well-known on the issue, so suffice it to say, I hope everyone is punished hardcore...banned from the hobby and hands cut off.
Sales totals waned during the rest of the weekend, but not a lot. Customer/public traffic picked up and remained steady, which makes for a fun show. I was able to buy some deals that came up to the table, and while I didn't buy any enormous deals, the aggregate of the small purchases I made here and there really added up nicely. I was able to add a bunch to my big name star inventory.
Thanks to James working with some of the autograph guests, I was able to sneak over to that side of the room...behind the curtains where all the athletes were doing their bulks signings. While there are over 100 signers there over the course of the week, here were some I was able to see on a couple quick trips:
As the week went on, I didn't want the show to end. I wasn't tired; my feet didn't hurt. Both of those are rarities. The momentum was great and the show was great. My buys and sells exceeded even the lofty end of my expectations. Wonderful week. I look forward to going back, whether as a dealer or customer, in 2021.
Have fun!
-T