If anyone knows the National Sports Collectors Convention, it’s Tom Daniels. At 76 years old, the Waunakee, Wisc. The dealer has been a fixture at every last one.
Pay no mind to the blue 40-year button on his shirt. The streak is now at 43. It spans from 1980 at the Marriott at Los Angeles International Airport to the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont.
Daniels has been to Chicago Nationals 14 times. He’s been in Cleveland for some eight shows. Then you toss in all five shows in Anaheim. Don’t overlook Atlantic City, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, and San Francisco. And even if I forgot some, Tom and his wife Anita didn’t.
You better believe they were there.
In 50 years of selling, the convention and The sports collecting industry are barely the same.
“There’s no comparison,” he said, tending to booth 1008. “The attendance is the first thing I notice, look at all the aisles. They are jam-packed. You don’t get a chance to go look around during the show. It is that big.”
He’s cut his travel to just a few shows. Now he goes to the National every year. He hits a show in Milwaukee and another in Dubuque, Iowa.
Most shows aren’t like the National in Chicago he says it is practically perfect.
“It’s close. We can bring more. We had a bunch more bulk stuff and we could move in and out right away. Chicago is a good town. There’s a great collector base, and a lot of people are here.
Selling at shows is taxing physically and can be cost-prohibitive.
“To take stuff on a plane is expensive. We used to go to shows like Kit Young’s show in Hawaii. Then you could check two pieces and carry on four. We take a total of eight pieces of luggage. Today, you have to pay for everything you take. We just don’t fly for shows.”
He thinks dealers and collectors agree. Chicago is more user-friendly. Logistically, it’s hard to argue with major highways, proximity to O’Hare International Airport the great surroundings outside the convention center.
And just like finding the right shows is key, the right products are essential.
His booth covers a myriad of interests. Like an investor, he has diversified his inventory.
The bulk of it is sets, singles, sets, and wax packs. “When Beanie Babies were hot, we had those. When Pokemon was hot we saw that. My philosophy is to have a little bit of everything, not to specialize. That way, if you are a collector we have something you might be interested in.”
This strategy balances out the highs and lows of market shifts. “If you specialize, you know things get hot then they get hot. We’ve just never done that.”
He misses the dynamic of the earlier shows. They aren’t as close-knit as they were in previous years. It was truly a convention that built great relationships.
“We used to go out and eat every evening with someone. Companies would put on events at night. They’d have a banquet for the dealers, just being with friends was nice.”
Hospitality rooms were a big part of it, Daniels said. “You’d have sandwiches and beer and soda and everything. A lot of times I stayed there till four or five in the morning. Being from the Midwest, I talked to the East Coast and West Coast dealers and saw what cards were selling for and usually, we were pretty much in tune. Everybody sold in the same range. There wasn’t an internet and there were very few hobby papers. It just worked itself out.
He says it wasn’t competitive because there were fewer dealers and everyone knew each other.
He started in 1954 when a neighbor girl gave him some cards. The Braves had just started playing in Wisconsin. Of course, he gravitated to guys like Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews. Mathews had just finished a successful 1955 campaign with a league-best 47 home runs. Aaron made his debut in 1955.
A golden age when cards were pieces that combined the allure of celebrity fascination with works of art. With limited television, cards were one the best ways to find visual connection with players. It was a perfect storm for the game and collecting.
The only way to acquire a full set was mail-order through companies that advertised in the Sporting News – another standard of baseball coverage in the day.
“I couldn’t afford to buy a set. I think they were like $5. Most kids didn’t have that much money. You’d get a dime a week as an allowance. I didn’t know of anyone who had a set.”
He started selling cards by mail-order in 1973 with ads in publications like the Sporting News. It was a general set with a few singles here and there. “It was like $32.80 for one-column inch.” I think it was over 20 years before we stopped.
He ventured into shows in 1974 and opened a store in nearby Richland Center in 1982 and ran it for 36 years before a flood forced them out in 2018.
His wife has been with him since the start. He taught business and coached high school baseball. He started his card business. Advertising in publications like the Sporting News. He would dig out the cards, stack them and she’d mail them.
At early shows, he got a feel for how big the industry was becoming.
“There were tons of buyers. People brought in tons of cards.”
“I don’t know if they didn’t know they could sell their cards before that or what. Everybody was buying. It was unbelievable “There were no price guides or anything. So you know it was just a guessing game.”
By 1990, there was no secret. There was no going back to the time when it was largely a hobby first, but still, a hobby that you could make a little bit of a profit from.
“It was really friendly. A lot of times we went in and bought collections together if we couldn’t afford them. The monetary value was entirely different in those days.”
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