Sneak Preview Day

I went to check in for the VIP line at 10 in the morning. Smooth as silk. They handed me a goodie bag the size of a small coffin. It must weigh 5 pounds. No idea what’s in it. I guess I will find out.

The VIP lounge is massive. There is a stage set up for what I assume will be announcements and annoying ‘entertainment’ later on. There are also multiple areas designated as card trading zones. That’s new. Even at 10:00 this morning with a 2:00 start time on the party itself, there were people with their cards out on tables doing business. Oh, I get it. This is where the people who don’t have tables and have small amounts of stuff to sell are going to be hanging out doing business all week. Which may also explain the real rationale of dealer passes being impossible to get (more on that later).

I find it incredibly frustrating to be on the non-dealer side of the national. I know people who are inside right now hunting bargains. Last night I was in a buying session with a long time collector happen to have a dealer pass, and he told me that he was looking forward to getting in there this morning to hunt down all the bargains before I could. Of course he was slinging shit but still…Speaking of deals, we worked on that deal well into the night. I think I left around one in the morning. It would’ve been a good deal, I think, except that in the light of day this morning turns out two of the cards that I picked up are counterfeits.

This raises a rather interesting question about card dealing ethics in our era. While every deal is in truth a zero sum trade, there are limits to what one can do. For example, I would never knowingly defraud someone on a transaction. There are a few cards he had that were signed. I could identify the signatures but they were not authenticated, so I refused to accept them. He says that he collected the signatures himself, and I believe him, but that is not the issue. It is simply a matter of my not being willing to risk selling a bad signature on an unknowing buyer regardless.

So what to do about the counterfeit cards? I called him this morning and left him a voicemail and said basically they were counterfeit cards and I wanted to give them back to him and get my cash back on the deal. My feeling is that when you engage in a transaction, especially with someone you know and have dealt with repeatedly, caveat emptor is not an option. If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d give his money back no questions. The only thing I will not guarantee is condition of a card. That you gotta evaluate yourself.

Now, you might suggest that the fakes I picked up are something I should’ve spotted and falls under some sort of condition issue. I disagree and agree. They were extremely good fakes, and it really took strong light (as in sunlight) this morning before I was able to identify the characteristics of the reprints. One was a fake Muhammad Ali card. The stock was terrific. The finishes were good. I simply had to see it in bright light to realize that it was a re-screen. The other of the cards, a Max Baer, had enough characteristics of a genuine card to fool the eye. It had a small area of damage on the back where the word reprint had been removed. Side by side with another Goudey only the back was appreciably different.

I do not accuse my trading partner of trying to cheat me. Yet. If he doesn’t stand up, that will change my tune. We’ll see.

I return to my room to drop off and dissect the VIP goodies. The bulk of the VIP bag proves to be deceptive. Most of the bag is comprised of another smaller bag, advertising flyers and magazines. There were five small VIP card packs in the bag. One that we have come to expect from Leaf. One that we have come to expect from Upper Deck. One from Panini. Also included are one from something called Vee Friends (from an annoying pump and dump influencer) and one from holder manufacturer Humongous Hoard.

As an aside, I have used the Humongous Hoard products for some time now, and they are really good (I have no stake in the company and do not receive anything, so this is a review, not a plug). They manufacture card saver style semi-rigid holders in variety of oddball sizes. Their tall boy holders are as wide as Card Saver 1s but also tall enough to accommodate Topps tall boy basketball cards. They also have varying sizes of semi-rigid holders on up through 8 1/2 x 11, which is quite useful when you’re talking about miscellaneous paper items and photographs and brochures that you do not want to put into penny sleeves or expensive Mylar holders. I traveled to the show this week with a stack of their products with me, and if their prices are good at their booth, I’ll probably buy some more and ship them home. That is the only discount coupon in the bag that I am going to use.

The interesting thing about the cards is that the packages from Upper Deck and Leaf contained very little baseball. Mostly they are older athletes in the upper deck set (the guys we have come to know from upper deck: Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Tiger Woods) plus volleyball and lacrosse. The Panini pack is entirely NFL rookies. I’ve never heard of any of them. The Leaf set includes baseball, football, MMA, basketball, and I think soccer. I don’t know the athletes in that sport so I’m not sure. Interestingly, while they went into things like soccer and volleyball, there is nothing from motorsports. From what I understand, motorsport dwarfs the others in size by a large margin. Missing entirely is anything from Fanatics/Topps. I guess they are so confident in their market position and process that they do not feel the need to advertise. The way to get guys like me who don’t collect new cards to be interested in the product is put it in there for us to see.

The other items in the stack are manufacturer redemption cards, which are in my opinion a scam. Here’s a card with a big headline screaming about a $50 free item. Then the fine print says yeah, if you come to our booth and spend $100. In my humble opinion, a rather stupid way to try and get new customers who may not even know your product and are not willing to throw away $100 on something they may not like. No thanks.

The VIP party basically consisted of a conga line to get the autographs. The guests were Al Oliver, Bill Cartwright and Bill Madlock. You had to choose which one to get then return to the line to get the other(s). I chose Madlock first in case the line did not move quickly. It was pragmatic: I had three Madlock cards and one Oliver card. Madlock was great, signed all three nicely and even switched to a fine point pen to sign his 4-player rookie (1974 Topps). I was then able to get in the Oliver line and get that card signed too. A quick potty stop and the show was open.

At 3 o’clock, we were allowed into the main convention facility. This show is absolutely freaking massive. It has to be twice the size of the previous shows. I have attended in Chicago. I got through most of the main room over the course of the five hours we were allocated. I am utterly burnt.

The amount of material available is simply overwhelming. Even discounting the tables of shiny crap and manufactured memorabilia, the sheer volume of material available for purchase is unparalleled. I spent a good deal of time pulling through commons boxes and cheap singles boxes trying to fill out sets. I was able to knock off a few things. Nothing earth changing though. There’s a ton of stuff that is really high-end and really nice and really really really expensive. On the items I purchased there was relatively little give in the dealers. I suspect this is because the hobbies in an absolute boom right now.

Demographically speaking, it was very nice to see so many kids and young adults at this show. Still a sausage fest, but there are women. At least three or four. No, actually, the were quite a few women attending the show, and they were not just the usual pissed off spouses. There were a few. One woman I saw had a look on her face of mild disgust and even a twinge of loathing towards her collector hubby.

I still haven’t heard from my card deal from yesterday about the counterfeits. I am starting to wonder if he’s blowing off my calls.

Tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel, for more of my brain droppings. Speaking which, the cards from the 1960s Batman series and the comics from the 1960s are absolutely through the roof here. So much for finishing those sets…