Is This Hell? No, It's Pasadena
It's my party and I'll cry if I want to
Riddle me this: What is it that has 230 tables and no customers? A Sunday card show on the day of the NFC and AFC championship games.
Sunday in Pasadena was the worst day at a show I have ever worked, going back 30+ years. I had three small sales the entire day. The other dealers I spoke with had similar results. The entire row to my right packed up and left around 1:00. I would have done the same except the promoter came over shortly after and warned the rest of us that leaving early violates the terms of our table agreement and if we do it, we will be dropped from the priority list for the next show. That is not a hollow threat because the show has a waiting list, like so many others. So we sat there, nothing going on. For hours.
The positive side of a dead show is that you do get a chance to observe people and think about things. One thing I noticed on Saturday and confirmed with a few other dealers was the dearth of $100 bills. I got one $100 to break on Saturday. The other guys also had very few Benjamins cross their tables. You may be wondering why I would think that has meaning. Well, think about where people get money and how they get, carry and spend it at shows. Most ATMs do not dispense $100s, so to get them you have to go into the bank. Most serious collectors I know make that effort because they take thousands to shows and do not want to carry a wad of $20 bills with them. I usually end up breaking several $100 bills a day at shows, on average, and often taking in a few more on larger sales. Nearly all of the currency I got was crumpled smaller bills. Lack of Benjamins tells me that people have cut way back on their show budgets.
I also saw people agonizing over relatively small purchases. One deal I was not able to close involved some pretty tough PCL items. Another dealer asked for PCL stuff and said he had a customer out of state with a list, which he showed me. I found three items literally on the list and offered them to him for $100. The dealer took a picture and texted it to the customer, who said he wanted the items. The dealer quoted the price and the client turned it down flat. No discussion. I saw similar actions over and over yesterday, people finding and abandoning items they claimed to want. One guy agonized over a $5 1971-72 Topps basketball card before putting it back and walking away. You spent $15 to park and $15 to get in each day (I recognized him from Saturday) and you are having a thrombo over five bucks? My view is that all of this hesitation at small transactions is a signal that the average collector is tapped out. That is not good news for the dealers. The economy may be humming along, and unemployment is low, but cards are essentially a luxury good and when prices for everything else go up, people won’t spend on luxury goods.
The Stroller People were back, too. One guy, during the dreaded Stroller Time, told me that he used to be a collector but his wife doesn’t allow him to buy anything, so he comes to shows and looks at cards then leaves. I was speechless. It’s like being allowed to chew a filet mignon and then being forced to spit it out.
I encountered a rather interesting phenomenon today, one I’d never heard of before: the trade-up challenge. I thought it was a show promotion but actually it is just a scam. A kid came to my table and asked for basketball cards. I showed him what I had and asked for a card worth at least $25, which was kinda odd, and it had to be slabbed. I don’t really deal in slabs. He said he was doing a trade-up challenge with a 1991 UD Jordan in a PSA 9. Apparently, kids are doing this all over the place to try and shark their ways from $5 to $100. While I applaud the naked ambition of it, I need to make money, not enrich you. Nice try.
Moving out was difficult, primarily due to a miscommunication. The promoter told us we could pull our cars into the loading dock and the freight elevators would be open to us at 5:00. Well, the tin-plated dictator with delusions of grandeur who ran admissions to the dock not only refused to lift a finger before 5:00 exactly, she would not even let us line up in the driveway. It was utter chaos. To make it even better, this petty bureaucrat told us to back our cars and trucks into traffic, make a u-turn, and wait on the street. After watching a really pissed dealer screaming “fuck” at the top of his lungs as he barreled his van across Marengo Avenue into an illegal and very dangerous U-turn to get in line, I got the hell out of there and went around the block instead. I ended up one car further down instead of potentially T-boned by someone in opposing traffic. When we finally got in, we were told that we had only 30 minutes. To park, wait in line for the freight elevator, go into the hall and pack out, wait in line again, load our cars and leave? Yeah, that’s realistic. I smiled politely, nodded, and muttered “go ahead and fucking tow me” as I pulled in. It took an hour to get it done and no one said a word. After 30+ years working with clerks in the court system, I have learned a thing or two about how to deal with this kind of twit. When a minor functionary with a bit of discretionary power over you can make your life really, really inconvenient, the last thing to do is lash out angrily at them and give them a reason. Besides, life is too short to let someone like that get to you. Be sweet and kind and just move past it.
I do learn things each show I do. Last time I learned that the boxes I use for picking should be nesting style so they can be packed in and out in a tote bag. That worked great. I also bought a few small, light and cheap acrylic jewelry showcases instead of the giant aluminum, glass and Masonite Allstate cases I had from back in the day, and they were so much easier to handle. I did make one bad decision, which was to take my packing materials and cart back to the car rather than stowing it all under the table. Next time, it gets stowed so that I can pack up in the late part of the show and walk out at 5:00 to get my car and move out.
Oh, and before I forget, the bathroom report. Gentlemen, the phones at the urinal thing has got to stop. Every time I went to pee, at least one of the guys standing there at the bank of urinals was looking at his phone while doing his business. Don’t do that. At best, it makes you look like an asshole; at worst, like you are trying to take a pervy selfie. Whizzing and pooting are “me” time, not fodder for your Insta; when you go into the john, hang it up, AT&T.
Despite Sunday, I signed up for the May Pasadena show. Saturday was good and I figure that sitting a show is good for contacts even if I don’t sell a lot, but a Sunday like this one does make me reconsider further participation. My next show is The Burbank Show over President’s Day weekend in Ontario, California. Should be a big one and a good show. Come out and play.