If you are a hardcore collector living in the United States and you are thinking of attending one of the three major Canadian Sport Card and Memorabilia Expo shows–or any Canadian show for that matter– there are several things you will need to know before planning your trip.
The Toronto Expo, considered the second largest show in the world behind the National, takes place Thurs., April 25 though Sun., April 28. It will be followed by the Edmonton show the following week, which is the largest show in western Canada. Three weeks after that, the Montreal Expo will be held in Montreal, QC.
“The first thing I ask people when they want to know about coming to Canada for the show is if they have a passport,” said Expo show owner and promotor Steve Menzie. “It always surprises me to know how many people, particularly in the United States, don’t have passports. If you are crossing the border for any reason, not just for the show, it makes things a lot easier.”
The Canadian events are similar to the National in ways. There is a huge show floor with corporate booths and grading companies, as well as a large autograph area and a line-up of guests. The show covers all sports, but the Expo is known for being the world’s largest hockey show.
“American collectors are really drawn to the tough-to-find and Canadian regional items,” Menzie said. While multitudes of unopened boxes and packs will be moving on the floor, the show is big for regional pieces of memorabilia, advertising material and food issue sets not available in the United States.
“The most important thing for collectors from the US to do is make sure they keep all their receipts and an accurate list of everything they purchase that they are bringing back to the US.”
Most dealers will be able to provide you with a receipt, but remember, you are at a sports card show. Not all dealers are sophisticated enough to be able to provide you with receipts. One trick I used when I was living in the United States and coming home for shows in Canada, was that I had a small receipt book I carried in my pocket. They can be found anywhere from Staples to the Dollar Store. Having one could save you a lot of money.
“If you don’t have a receipt, the border agent will likely look up the value of the item on the spot online,” one US customs worker told us. “If you got an item for $20, but Beckett lists it at $100, you will be paying duty on $100 if you don’t have a receipt.”
Crossing The Broder
If you are planning to visit Toronto, your main options are to fly into Pearson Airport or to drive and cross at either Buffalo or Niagara Falls. Some coming from the east may take 81 North off I-90 and cross at the Thousand Islands Bridge.
At the border, you will be asked the typical border questions. What is your citizenship? Where do you live? Where are you going? What’s the purpose of your trip?
You will then be asked if you are carrying firearms, explosives or weapons, if you are bringing food, plants or animals into the country, if you are bringing alcohol or tobacco into the country, or if you are carrying more than $10,000. That will include any combination of cash, travelers’ checks, stocks, bonds or bank drafts.
You can enter the country if you do have that much money, but you must declare it to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA). If you fail to report it and they discover through a search or another method that you do have that much currency, the penalty can be turning over anywhere from five to 50 per cent of your currency.
If you have gifts for friends or relatives you are visiting in Canada at the show, it is important not to wrap them. The CBSA agent will likely unwrap it to examine it.
If you are American and do not have a passport, you can still get into the country by ground. You will need a government issued photo ID such as a driver’s license, and a birth certificate or citizenship card. It may take much longer to get into the country without a passport.
If you are flying, you will need a passport to book a flight and board your plane, so you will already have it with you. If you are a US permanent resident but not a citizen, you will also need your passport.
When I worked for Pinnacle and later Pacific and would travel to Canada for shows or to visit my parents, my work visas were stapled into my passport, which was filled with stamps. At one point, I was on a TN visa.
Here’s a guide to crossing the border.
Getting Detained
I will tell you two quick stories about getting detained at the border.
For the first one, the moral of the story is don’t crack any jokes or be a clown.
In 1987 after the Montreal Alouettes folded and I learned that Canadians were not allowed to work as replacement layers in the United States, my dreams of playing in the CFL and NFL both took a hard blow. I didn’t know what my football destiny was, but I found myself playing in the Empire Football League for the Watertown (NY) Red and Black.
I quickly made a lot of friends. One of my closest friends on the team often carried a weapon as he worked in a dangerous area. After the season, he was on his way over to spend a day watching college football, drinking Canadian beer (which is way better), and eating wings (not as good as your wings).
When he was crossing the border, he thought he would be funny.
“Are you carrying any firearms?”
“Yeah,” he said. “What do you need?”
After sitting in a room and being interrogated for about four hours, they sent him home. He was a no show, so I had his share of beer and wings.
The second story is, well, anything can happen in the sports collectibles industry.
I was at Pearson Airport in Toronto, heading back home to Seattle after the Expo.
I got questioned, as usual, by the CBSA agent. Even though it was at the Toronto airport, we cleared customs there before boarding the plane.
He was looking at my visa and was grilling me about my job.
“Would you say you are an expert in the sports collectibles field?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering where this is going.
“Could you please have a seat over there?”
He pointed to a row of hemorrhoid-inducing wooden chairs, where I sat for nearly an hour freaking out because I thought I wouldn’t be able to get home.
Finally, he and another agent came to get me and asked me to follow them into the office.
They sat behind a desk and I sat in a chair facing them. They pulled out a customs card that had been filled out by someone on a plane a few weeks earlier.
“So we have this card,” the one who detained me said. “It’s a standard customs card that everyone has to fill out. I want you to take a look at it.”
I looked at the card and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.
Name: Michael Jeffrey Jordan
I didn’t even look at the rest, though he had a big, sweet autograph on the bottom of the customs card.
“So how much do you think this is worth,” one said.
“Yeah,” the other piped in. “Michael Jordan flew to Toronto and came home through here. It was so cool. We kept the card. So what do you think?”
That card would be worth a lot more money now than it would have been worth in 2002.
“It’s hard to say,” I said, not having a clue what something like this would sell for. “It’s a government document so it’s like a built-in certificate of authenticity. And it’s definitely rare – it would qualify as a one-of-one. It’s definitely something you would want to sell by auction. I would say this would sell for at least $500.”
They looked at each other and had a huge high five. I made their day, and they sent me on my way.
US Cash
When you see Canadian money, don’t act like an idiot. We have colored money. Our $5 bills are blue, and our $10 bills are purple. Only our $20s are green. One and two dollar bills were eliminated and replaced with coins decades ago. A one dollar coin is gold and is called a Loonie, a nickname that stuck because of the image of the loon on it. The $2 coins are silver with gold in the middle. They are called “Toonies”. We also eliminated pennies, so prices are rounded up or down to the nearest five cents.
When American tourists see that our money has different colors and act like they have just seen Big Foot, Canadians don’t really like that. I mean, come on, it’s not like our currency is sickles and knuts.
Having said that, dealers at the show are used to American cash, and I would be shocked if they would not accept it. They may accept it par, or they may count an American dollar as $1.20 or $1.25 Canadian. If you pay in American cash, you may not get your change back in American currency.
Most of our bank machines will accept cards from US banks and will dispense Canadian cash and do the math on the exchange automatically. You can also go to a bank, and there are several on Airport Road. Our system is different as there are no regional or local banks. There are five national banks: TD, BMO, RBC, Scotiabank, and CIBC.
What Should I Eat?
C
anadian food and American food is basically the same. Outback is Outback, Subway is Subway, Wendy’s is Wendy’s.
The biggest Canadian staple is a double-double (two cream, two sugar) from Tim Hortons in the morning to start your day. At some point, you should probably have a poutine. Translated, poutine means “mess”. It was always a regional food in Quebec and Eastern Ontario/Ottawa. It would be fresh cut fries smothered in gravy and covered with cheese curds. The curds are the most important part as they are particular to the cheese curds sold by dairy farms in Quebec and Eastern Ontario. But in Toronto, you will find good poutine in a restaurant or especially at a chip wagon (food truck specializing in fries).
The warning is that after eating it, you will feel like you have been punched in the gut. It’s worth it.
If you like fast food burgers, the one to try is Harvey’s. They are cooked over an open flame with Angus beef. I would say the biggest reason to try Harvey’s is that it’s a Canadian staple that does not exist in the U.S.
Ottawa is the shawarma capital of Canada, but Toronto has some great shawarma as well.
Getting Home
We will get to details of Toronto in a bit, but before you go on a spending spree, there are some things to be aware of before returning to the United States. This may impact what you buy and how much you buy.
According to our discussion with US Customs and Broder Protection (CBP), there is an $800 exemption for duty on goods you are bringing back to the United States. To clarify, if you bought $2,000 worth of goods, you would only pay duty on $1,200 worth of merchandise. According to the US Customs website, duty would be three per cent.
There is also a tax in Canada that will give you sticker shock if you have never dealt with it. The GST (goods and services tax) is 13 per cent. However, if you are a US Citizen or permanent resident, you will be able to claim the GST you paid when returning to the US. You can ask the CBP agent for details on how to do this and what forms you will need.
How things go at the border will depend entirely what you purchased and how much you spent. The most important thing, again, is to make sure that save every receipt and have a detailed and itemized list of each item.
“That will help a lot,” said the CBP agent we talked to. “The easier you make it and the more organized you are, the faster it will be to get you through the border.”
One piece of information that will be important for you is that if you purchase a product that is manufactured in the United States while you are out of the country, you can return with it duty free. If the CBP agent is not familiar with the sports card industry, that piece of information could help them.
The second agent I talked to was at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo and he was familiar with the hobby. If you buy unopened packs or boxes of products made by Upper Deck, Topps, Panini or another company whose products are printed in the United States, you can bring them home duty free. That is because any item manufactured in the United States and then exported and purchased outside the country can be brought back in duty free.
“If you have a card, and that card is autographed, then that’s completely different,” he said. “The card’s value is enhanced by the signature and it no longer has the same value as something that was purchased as a box of cards. You would have to itemize and declare that.”
The agent also said there is a threshold of $2,500 for an item.
“If you have an item worth more than $2,500, you will need a customs broker,” he said. “There are no brokers on site at the border, and we are not allowed to recommend anyone, but we can give you all the information that you need and you can usually find someone by looking brokers up on your phone.”
In the past, I have used a customs broker crossing the border with memorabilia items. If you know you are going to be making a big purchase at the Expo, it’s best to search and find a customs broker local to your US point of re-entry and just touch base with them to understand how they do things.
He added that if the items were valued less than $2,500, your trip back into the United States would be considered an informal entry.
One of the questions they get asked about sports cards is if they qualify as printed media. Newspapers, magazines and books can cross the border duty free. However, sports cards do not fall into that category as they are commercial goods.
It sounds overwhelming and complicated, but it’s really not once you are doing it.
While in Toronto
In the past five years, Toronto has exploded in growth. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA), also called The Six thanks to prodigal son Drake, is now the fourth largest city in North America with 7.5 million people. Only Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles have more people among North American cities.
Having said that, getting around the city by car is going to come with the traffic issues of big cities.
The International Centre is at 6900 Airport Road, obviously very close to the airport, several miles northwest of the downtown area. If you are flying into Toronto, it’s very convenient. There are hotels, restaurants, malls, and everything you need close by.
If you are driving in, whether you are coming from Buffalo on the QEW or from the east on Highway 401, you will want to take 427 north and you will get there.
If you are making the trip into a vacation and you want to see the city, I would recommend hitting downtown, which is remarkably small considering the population of the GTA. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in town that weekend to face the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. The ballpark has been refurbished and actually feels like a ballpark instead of a stale cement dome. And face it, a chance to see Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts is a great a la carte to a great show.
Down the street, the Air Canada Centre will be hopping Saturday night as the Leafs host the Boston Bruins in Game 4 of their first round series. There will be 20,000 or so people at the game, and then another 50-100,000 people jammed into Maple Leafs Square to watch the game on the big screen.
During the day, the Hockey Hall of Fame is also downtown on Front Street. If you are a hockey lover, the Hall of Fame is a must.
If you do make it for the show, be sure to say hi to me if you see me. Look for a guy wearing a Montreal Expos Tom Brady jersey. I might call an audible and put on my Polar Bear Mets or my Tim Tebow Mets jersey. Maybe it will be my Mark “The Bird” Fidrych Tigers jersey or my Thurman Munson Yankees jersey. My Brett Maher Cowboys jersey became a conversation piece after all those missed converts.
Or maybe it will just be one of my Doug Flutie jerseys.
Oh, what to wear. But isn’t that half the fun of going to a big show?
