My Trip To The Nationals - Long Read w/pics

[envoy98]

My Review of the Nationals.

Rosemont, IL
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
407 Miles & 6 Hours from my house.

Day 1:
Walked in the door and looked at the pricing for admission, while I was thinking about buying the VIP package for myself ($99) 2 guys walked up and offered me their VIP badges
for $10 each. So my wife and I could get in every day of the show, an hour early for only $20 total? Instead of the $99 I was going to pay and the $15/day for my wife I decided to jump on it. Hey, more money to spend on cards I say!

I get in the arena and I see a sea of people, tables and "stuff" I decide to start walking... I take a cursory look at the tables with memorabilia and such paying more attention to those tables with vintage football I need for my set registries and the nice modern stuff I've been accustomed to. First person I see as I walk through the door is Alan "Mr. Mint" Rosen. Eh..nothing special. I move on. I continue on and check things out and decide I'd be better served trying to split the room to cover some ground and keep track of where I've been. So I go up about halfway and hang a right, I weave in and out of the rows still looking for stuff I need...surprisingly, nothing. By this time, I've stopped at a few tables and begin to notice a trend: First, Prices that are marked are done so at or above book in most cases and second, and more importantly, nobody said hello or even acknowledged my presence at their table. For example, I was wanting to look at a reasonable condition Johnny Unitas rookie, it was marked at $275 and I asked to see it. The gentleman (jerk) was looking at some cards with a loupe and light and ignored my first request to see the card. I went to the side of the table so I was standing in front of him and asked again. To which his reply was "Actually, I'm kinda busy with some other stuff I have to get done right now, would you mind coming back later?" "Certainly" I replied...and never came within 10 feet of his table tthe rest of the show.

I end up back towards the front of the show and see a couple people that frequent the local shows and some guys I know from the Kansas City Tri-Star show and I get to chatting with them. Seems their experiences have been similar so far. I stop at another table and notice quite a few older football cards I need and ask to take a look. While he's pulling the card out of his case for me, he's speaking with another dealer and almost seems annoyed at my request. He then takes the card and tosses it at me as though he's irritated. Hmm...card has a stain on it and you seem a bit testy, so I'm gonna pass.

I look at a few more tables and it's 6 pm. Show's closing, time to head back to the hotel. Not a moment too soon in my opinion as I was very unimpressed at this point both with the attitudes of the dealers and the items I was finding that I was actually looking for. Total spent for the day, $20 and that was for admission.

Next day, I come back in and start about where I left off. Dealers seem a bit more pleasant today and I spend a couple dollars and few extra minutes perusing the tables where the dealers actually did say hello. I pick up a few nice 60's and 70's football for my sets and continue on. I spot the grading company booths (SGC, GAI, PSA and Beckett are almost packed in a circle so I hit them all. I drop 2 cards off at beckett's booth (Bonds auto and Bill Russell Auto) and have them graded. Should have them back in a while. I stop at the PSA booth and think about having a few other cards graded...lets see...how much...oh damn. $25? Per Card? Yikes. Nevermind. I spot the cards of the John Branca collection and start drooling. PSA 8 52 Topps Mantle, some gorgeous high-grade 54 Bowman baseball and high grade examples of just about any other of the Top 200 cards in the hobby that you could
imagine. Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron were all very well represented. Absolutely stunning! I then spot the holy grail of baseball cards. The 1909 T-206 McNall/Gretzky Honus Wagner grade PSA 8 and serial numbered 00000001. WOW. Not much else to say about that. Seeing a card that has the history that card does, the journey that card had to make and the quality of it in it's holder is absolutely mind boggling to me. Not to mention it's a $1.2 million dollar baseball card. Sitting next to Honus is a graded $1000 bill that recently sold for $733,000 dollars and a coin that recently sold for get this.... $4.125 MILLION! I don't know anything about it but hey, it made somebody very happy to get it! I decide not to spend $25/card on the few cards I was going to grade and I mosey on over to the GAI booth. I like the $5 pre-grade and it gives me an idea on if I should spend my $25 with PSA. So I drop off 2 cards. The first is a 54 Topps Tommy Lasorda rookie that I picked up a few weeks back for $100 (High book $200) I also drop off a gorgeous 63 Topps Willie Mays that I picked up at the same time and paid $40 for (High Beckett $100). Danny lets me know my cards look great and they should be ready in a couple hours. So I check out the SGC booth and see a beautiful SGC 96 (Mint 9) 1935 National Chicle Bronko Nagurski. If you know anything aboout vintage football, this card is about as
close the holy grail of football cards as you can get. This, in many regards is the Honus Wagner of football cards. It's not a million dollar card, but it's certainly at the top of most serious football card collectors wish-lists.
I head down the row and stop at the Topps booth, boy they're making a lot of noise over there. Hey, they're handing out raffle tickets and doing pack-wars. Lets stop and check this out. We hang out for about 5 minutes and they give us a pack of cards. We open it and they start calling out weird stats...tallest player (6'7 won), heaviest player (287 Frank Thomas won) Most letters in the last name (12, I forget who though) Most career HR's (Sosa) most stolen bases (300 and some) I didn't win any of those, and neither did my wife. No matter though, they start calling out raffle ticket numbers. Some guys got a Topps hat filled with Topps 50th Anniversary packs, others got a T-Shirt and so on. The top 2 prizes however were a mini-box of Finest baseball and a box of Topps football. Well wouldn't you know, my wife ends up winning the box of Topps football which was very cool. Not
bad for free I tell ya. (we busted it later that night in the hotel, nothing much worth mentioning) I look around some more, pick up a couple more cards and realize it's been a while since I dropped off my cards, I wonder if they're done. I go back to the GAI booth and see if my cards are ready. Sure enough, they're done. I'm figuring a 7-8 on the Lasorda and an 8 on the Mays. Well, it turns out the Lasorda came back an 8 and the Mays an 8.5. To put this in perspective, I paid $140 for the pair. SMR on the two is now $425
and $340+ respectively. I'm debating on putting them in PSA holders at this point but I know how the PSA team views GAI graded cards so I just take them in the GAI holders and move along. Not sure if I'll crack them or not. Needless to say, I made out pretty well on that deal. It's getting close to 6 pm and I've picked up about 75 cards for my set registries, nothing spectacular but all in good shape and most at a decent price, so I'm satisfied. Lets go and get a bite to eat. Total spent on singles $700.

We head across the street to a nice little place called Gibson's. We check out the menu and realize we're probably a little underdressed for this place (shorts and t-shirts) but I poke my head in. Ah, there's a bar, screw it, lets go in. We sit down and order a drink. I hear a familiar voice behind me and I'm thinking, huh, who is that I'll have to say hello...No way, I see a red-faced gentleman with a crew cut and a loose button down shirt sitting at the bar next to me. Who is it? Oh, it's just the Bears legendary coach Mike Ditka sitting there. How cool is that? I'm 28 years old and I got a bit giddy when I saw him. I don't bother him and instead ask the waitress if they serve a full menu in the bar, she tells me yes and so I order the "Big Filet" $32 but hey, after that crap I ate at Morton's a few weeks back and paid $40 for, I figure this has to be better. (Turns out it was) So I'm sitting there eating my steak and I hear some lady behind us say "I love your music, gosh, if there's any more celebrities in here I'll have to call my girlfriends to come out here" So I turn and look...sorry, nobody I recognized, some floppy haired dude chilling out at the bar. As I'm turning back to continue eating I see some big guy standing in the doorway, very tan, very buff, older and quite a bit worse for wear...wearing a bright pink sweater and a big-™™™™™ super bowl ring. I have no idea who it was, though I heard him introduce himself to someone as Kenny something. (No, it wasn't Stabler) He took off before I could find out. I finish my meal and see some guy walk over to Mike Ditka and ask for an auto, he gets a Gibsons menu signed "Best Wishes, Mike Ditka" and is smiling like a 5 year old at xmas time. I ask the gentlemen he's walking with if Mike signed for them and the one guy tells me he's Mike's agent (I noticed him sitting next to him and talking to him all night) I asked if he though Mike would mind if I said hello and asked for an autograph, he says "he'll sign, no problem" cool... so I walk over there, and as I get close some little brunette woman about 25 years old steps between me and Mike and I say "Are you with him?" She simply replies "I'm sorry, but I can't let you ask for his autograph, you need to respect his privacy" I say, "Well his agent told me it was cool, but that's
alright, no problem." She then feels the need to respond, "I'm sorry, but you can't have his autograph, respect his privacy". I heard her the first time she said it, now she's just being terse. B!t@^. I really don't have a problem with this, but keep in mind. It's Mike Ditka, he's sitting in the middle of the bar, he's across the street from the National Sports Card Convention (where he just got done signing), he's in Chicago where he's revered as a god and he's wearing a shirt that says "Mike Ditka" on the back of it. Doesn't strike me as though he was going real incognito..but maybe that's just me. I decide to head back to the hotel (tail between my legs and without an auto).

Next day, we go back to the show and pick up where we left off. I pick up my cards from Beckett which are now completed and I get a BGS 9 / 10 auto on the Bonds and a BGS 9/9auto on the Bill Russell. The Bonds is .5 from a 9.5 but I don't submit enough I suppose to get the friendly bump. I take my cards and head out. I am convinced that BGS ranks among the most
corrupt grading companies now. I won't go into real specifics but I'll tell you I saw things I didn't think they'd let you see in plain view. Oh, and that whole excuse the grading companies give about "the grader doesn't know who submitted the cards so there is no possibility of "favoritism", yeah, that's a farce. The cards end up with invoice attached to them (along with your name, addy, phone etc) as they get handed to the grader. I don't know if PSA did this as they had the "Curtain of Mystery" hiding you from their graders and their slabbing machine. Beckett did this too but you could see the box with your invoice get handed to the grader in back, no real mystery there. I saw another dealer submit about 400 cards, I then saw him later that day at his table and the cards were graded and he was opening them. I noticed the box said "BGS 9.5's Box 4 of 12" Those boxes hold either 20
or 25 cards each...he submitted 400 cards and got back 12 boxes of 9.5's...hmm...you do the math. I watched a few others literally walk up and say "This is better than a 9 and you know it" 5 minutes later the guy came back with the card and an invoice and he said "come back in a half hour" to which he came back to a 9.5. Shameful.

I get disenchanted hanging around the grading booths and re-start my quest for nice vintage. I find two dealers that manage to take another $1000 off me. I decide I'd better sell a couple things and raise some more money. So I sell and trade a couple of my PC cards and raise a few dollars more. I find myself digging through some books with 50's-70's football all in numerical order just ripe for the picking. Turns out, it's Etta Fritsch's(sp?) table. Shes the organizer of the National Convention. While I'm digging through one
of the books and looking at some of her case cards I hear someone tell her that OJ has shown up and is signing autographs at some booth and charging people $125/auto. (Yes, OJ Simpson of White Bronco fame) She says "He's not supposed to be here, get him out" Security escorts him out and that's that... Check the Chicago Sun Times for an article on it.

Turns out it was quite a funny story. He wanted to do the show, the dealers and other autograph guests objected and so he was not invited. So, he just showed up with a credit card machine, a sharpie and a card table and started selling autos. Until security removed him. Sounds like he took a lot of grief from people and ended up across the street at the Embassy Suites doing the same thing. Strange...

I found myself at the back of the show again, where I saw some other nice football but the prices were a bit steep so I marked it on my list in case I didn't find anything better. I'm looking over his table while he's totalling up my cards and I see a pretty nice 53 Topps Satchell Paige. He has it marked $195 ($20 over PSA 5 SMR) I offer him $175 and he agrees. Looks pretty clean and I've convinced myself a PSA 5 would sell over SMR anyway so I get it. I wander over to the GAI booth and have Danny Fisher take a look at it and
tell me what he thinks. He says "This thing has been stretched and trimmed, I can't holder it" I have him show it to Mike Baker, the head grader, and he says the same thing. So I wander back to yahoo's table and say "I have a problem" I tell him the Paige is trimmed and before I can ask for my money back he says "What did you pay for it?" I tell him $175 and before I know it, my money is back on the table. I say thank you, and head towards the doors.

Well, aside from that I picked up some nice cards at the end of the show, I stood next to Panny Marshall (League of their own, Laverne & Shirley fame) as she bought a game used Lakers jersey from Grey Flannel. I also picked up some great signed photos that a guy was closing out on Sunday. I had them GAI authenticated before I left and they all passed authentication. Hooray. (I got auto'd pictures of Ripken/Ryan, Unitas, Bird, Howe, Gretzky, Brett, Brett/Schmidt and Roenick.

There were some amazing cards there that I probably will not see again. Whether you are a modern collector, vintage collector, wax busting freak, vintage wax collector, memorabilia collector or anything in between, there was something there for you. Up until Sunday the prices were a bit high in many cases, but there were plenty of deals to be had, especially on Sunday. Some people, no matter how well versed they claim to be, still overvalue their cards. One of the coolest cards I saw was from a guy that busted a case of Upper Deck HOF tins. 20 tins, $150msrp/tin. He pulled a Jeter/DiMaggio dual auto (which he later sold for $1100) he then pulled the 2nd best card from the collection. A quad auto of Jeter/Mattingly/Mantle/Ruth. He was asking $17,500 for the card, and no, he wouldn't let me take a picture of it. Don't ask me why...

Anyway, awesome show, I picked up 175 cards I needed for my set registries (all but 8 are raw) so PSA will be getting a big check from me. Pics included, enjoy. And if you managed to read this entire thing, I applaud you. I can't read my own writing or stay with my scattered thoughts. Congrats to you for being able to put up with it long enough to finish it.

[envoy98]

streamed pic

[jaybiddyforeal]

thats one hell of a weekend.....wish i could ahve made it out tot he national but im only 17 and i couldnt tihnk of a lie to tell my aprents to let them let me go on a little roadtrip....oh well...next year ill be there! i wish i had that much $ to spend on cards too......you dropped like 2000$ im figuring....maybe more.......its well worth it though you got some real nice stuff. seeing that wagner must have been one hell of an experience as well

james

[envoy98]

I figured I spent about $2850 on cards, but I got a ton of cards for my set registries and I'll sell a few cards that will make me the majority of that back. (hopefully) Glad you read the whole thing, it's not one of my better pieces but I get the point across. :) It was a lot of fun, Chicago is a great city. I hope I have a reason to go next year. (Anaheim)

[pr0phet]

Dude that is one awesem trip, you know I read the whole thing and sounds like it will be an experince worth remembering.. At least until next years trip :D

Jay

[jaybiddyforeal]

omg...next year is in anaheim..........3000 miles away......so much for that road trip...

james

[envoy98]

lol. Yeah, it's in Anaheim. But, Disneyland is close. :)

[BigAl]

I read the whole thing as well, good read. Those conventions sound fun and all, but like jay, I'm only 17 and while going there wouln't be a problem, having enough money to even get into the thing would be. It sounds like the National is the ULTIMATE money pit, I know that if I walked in there with $2000 I would spend it all and still want more. Also, I've heard a lot of great things about Chicago, and I'll be visiting there sometime this fall to look at DePaul University.

[TurdFerguson]

I also read the whole thing. I wish I could have went being only 45 minutes away but I didn't have the money to get in the door let alone to buy anything.

[finestkind]

Thanks for posting all that. Thats about as close as I'll get to go to the National. Great pictures too.