Long before eBay, a good local sports card show usually had another element besides a bunch of tables set up around a hotel ballroom or VFW building. At some point, usually late in the day, the show promoter or his designated representative would conduct a live auction. Typically the merchandise came from dealers in the room or from folks off the street who had … [Read more...]
New Promoter as Weeknight New Jersey Show Resumes
Can a Tuesday night sports card show survive? One did for many years in Parsippany, New Jersey. The show at the Police Athletic League began in 1981 and ran through the summer of 2015. This Tuesday night, October 4, one of the hobby’s longest running events of any kind will relaunch with a new promoter. Joe Drelich of East Coast Sports Marketing, which operates the larger … [Read more...]
Rich’s Ramblings: More National Stories for My ‘Living Book’
When I first left Beckett in 2007, my “plan” such as it was, was to write a book about people in the hobby much in the way that Lawrence Ritter did in his masterful tome, “The Glory of Their Times.” Ritter, who wrote the book based on the assumption he wanted to talk to players of an age long ago whose numbers were dwindling. He did an absolutely masterful job with his … [Read more...]
Ramblings: Remembering the ‘Unique’ Security at the 1984 NSCC Show… and Old Friends
While the theft issue may not have been as big as some other years, there were still some significant items stolen at this year’s National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago. Perhaps the most expensive card which walked away was a 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA4 holder. Hearing about these always reminds me of one of my favorite old National stories. At the Parsippany, NJ … [Read more...]
Ramblings: Parsippany Card Shows and Trivia With Barry Halper
by Rich Klein The best part about these ramblings is I think of great leads all week, but when I sit down at the computer to write, the story always ends up going in a different direction than I planned. Last week, I had planned to write a tribute to my father in honor of what would have been his 91st birthday on October 29, but the little matter of World Series tickets and … [Read more...]