You’ll find some of the dealers at the National Sports Collectors Convention at other card shows throughout the year but at this one, it’s open season on their booths. Collectors hungry to make deals start coming when the doors open and don’t stop until it’s time to leave.
“It is a place where people come to spend a lot of money,” said show dealer Tony Schaefer of Monster Cards in Champaign, IL. “What I’ve seen over the past couple of years are fewer smaller sales at the National, those $40 to $200 cards but people want to come out and buy something for a thousand or two thousand.”
He sold 1964 and ’65 Topps complete sets before most people had entered the room on Wednesday.
“People are looking to buy the big ticket, blue chip items at a show like this so I try to gear my inventory toward that.”
Schaefer sells at local shows and through the shop’s eBay store. A former journalism student, he’s also chronicling his National adventures on his website’s blog.
While the market for some high-end modern cards has taken a dive, most of the oldies but goodies haven’t been affected much.
“The vintage market is still real strong,” Schaefer said.
And there’s one segment in particular that is buzzing.
“The hottest thing in the market right now is signed cards from during a player’s career.”
Schaefer had a quartet of signed Mickey Mantle cards front and center in his booth.
Chuck Whisman of of VSM Card Outlet and Wheatland Auctions in Lancaster, PA shared that same sentiment without even being asked.
“The number of signed Nolan Ryan signed rookies has probably tripled or quadrupled in the last few years,” Whisman said. “People are buying the off grade cards with the intent of getting them signed. Every National we run out of raw Marino, Elway and even Hulk Hogan rookie cards because people are getting them signed. The signed Hall of Fame rookies have really spiked.
“Twenty years ago, a lot of people still weren’t sure if they should ‘mess up’ a vintage card with an autograph,” he said.
Attitudes gradually changed and now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.
Schaefer says the market is especially strong for players who died while it was still considered taboo to have a vintage rookie card signed.
“As a result, there’s a scarcity.”
As a whole, the show has been a strong one with a stampede of collectors gobbling up cards from both dealers’ cases. Whisman says Wednesday’s five-hour sneak peek was his busiest ever. VSM sold more than double the volume they had ever done at the annual showcase.
“We’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a good thing they expanded the space.”
Using a sense of what’s going to be hot at the show is one factor in determining exactly what to pack and what to leave back at the shop, but Whisman says some popular, high-grade and hard to find cards were stashed away, waiting for the trip to Chicago.
“From the day the National ends, we start accumulating for the next National. We don’t put it out in our store. We just put it away until the next National. “
VSM was selling both modern and vintage cards and brought a supply for brand spanking new football cards.
“It’s a great time for all of the hot quarterbacks. This time of year most rookie quarterbacks are hot. By playoff time, maybe three of four of them will still be hot. You have people looking for players on every team because everyone thinks their team is going to the Super Bowl.
“With vintage it’s the higher grade stuff and the iconic players. They’ll always sell.“
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