Friday was my last day at the show before flying back home to Seattle. We got another amazing breakfast at the Root before heading over to the IX Center. On Thursday, I went into the day under the false impression that I had seen pretty much everything on the show floor. So on Friday, I reversed that thinking, instead figuring that there were still some cards that would interest me that I hadn’t yet seen.
Ironically, Friday ended up being the best day of the show for me, in terms of finding cards to buy. It was also the most fun because I had met some new (and old) friends the previous night, who I ran into at various times on the show floor Friday. In terms of new cards, I added two cards to my 1917 Collins McCarthy set, and bought a couple 1906 Fan Craze PSA 8s that I thought were priced very fairly. I also returned to a booth I had visited on Wednesday and bought a PSA 5 T205 Miller Huggins with American Beauty back that I had been thinking about since seeing it on Wednesday. With just a few minutes left, a friend told me that he had seen a stack of Elite 11 Piedmont 350s at a booth near the back of the show. I knew I hadn’t seen that table, so I took off in search of it. I found it, and as the show was closing at 6:00pm, I finalized a deal to pick up Cycle 460, Tolstoi, American Beauty 350 no frame, and an American Beauty 350 with frame backs.
Later that night, I went back to the hotel bar for another evening of hanging out with new friends. As I arrived, I almost bumped into Henry Winkler, who I guess was in Cleveland to sign autographs at the show. Later that night, I walked out to the pool area just in time to see Jose Rijo saying goodnight to three of my friends. Turns out they had about an hour-long conversation with him, and he couldn’t have been a nicer or cooler guy.
Overall, the trip was a blast. Walking the floor and taking in the atmosphere was an experience I’ll never forget. I added a nice stack of cards to the collection, and got to see some incredible cards I’ll only dream of owning. However, the best parts of the trip were the new friends and connections that I made throughout the three days. I’m already looking forward to next year’s National in Chicago. I imagine it will be even more fun because I’ll be going into it with a bunch more friends than I had prior to this one.
Thoughts about the show as a whole:
This was my first National, so I can’t offer any comparisons to other years, but I was able to get a pretty good sense of what the market was like for the cards that I was looking to buy. As you can imagine, that mainly means T206s, and the rare and mid-tier backs in particular.
I went into the show expecting to see a lot more mid-tier and rare backs than I actually saw. In hindsight, it really isn’t too shocking that there weren’t more of them in the room. Mid-tier backs, when priced fairly, will sell very quickly. It probably wasn’t reasonable to expect the show to be some magical mecca of rare backs. Most of these dealers probably sell online and/or in other venues, and unless their prices are crazy high, collectors will snap up the rare stuff. What this tells me is that the market for mid-tier and rare backs is very strong. There is more demand than supply for sure. Collectors are still price sensitive up to a certain point, but if a tough back is priced somewhere in a reasonable range, it’s not going to last long.
From what I saw, the rare backs were priced at “museum prices”. I only saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 rare backs* on the entire show floor, and I don’t think any of the sellers felt much pressure to sell them. Not that I blame them. If you sell a nice looking card with a rare back, good luck ever getting it back if you change your mind.
I saw quite a few reasonable prices on commons throughout the show. One table had close to 100 PSA 5 graded commons all priced from $125 to $160. Another thing that stood out to me was how many bargains I saw on raw, lower grade T206s. If I had been trying to build a raw set from scratch, I bet I would have found 50-100 cards that I would have wanted to buy because they were good deals.
The only regret I have from the trip is that I didn’t find out there were any Wagners in the room until after I had come home from the show. I’m pretty sure I saw pictures of at least three different ones online after I had already left Cleveland. There are so many dealer tables to look at that you can really spend the entire time just looking for stuff to buy. That’s more or less what I did. Next year, I’m definitely going to make time to look at the Auction House booths. I’ve still never seen a Wagner in person, and I guess I’ll have to wait until next year to rectify that.
All in all, it was an incredible trip, and I am already looking forward to next year in Chicago.
*When I talk about rare T206 backs, I am referring to Carolina Brights, Broad Leaf 350, Blank Back, Lenox, Red Hindu, Uzit, Drum, and Broad Leaf 460.