At the National Sports Collectors Convention you're never too young to begin wheeling and dealing on... [+]
When I became a FORBES contributor a little more than two years ago I hadn’t attended a baseball card show in a long time. There used to be so many in the New York metro area where I have lived since 1986. The Armenian Church in mid-town Manhattan attracted many of the top dealers and baseball legends. I remember everyone in the room giving Joe DiMaggio a standing ovation when he appeared for an autograph appearance. The sunny Ernie Banks sang Stormy Weather during a torrential rain outside.
Pete Rose told a young fan his greatest thrill was winning the World Series in 1975 and 1976. Rose... [+]
Looking back, I sure racked up plenty of train miles going to hobby shows during the hobby’s boom in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I took the subway a few stops from my Manhattan office to Madison Square Garden and trekked out to the Nassau Colosseum on Long Island. I got off at the last subway stop in the Bronx and walked a couple of miles to Yonkers Raceway. I remember the Westchester County Center in White Plains show being so popular that The New York Daily News, which had the biggest circulation of any paper nationwide at the time, sponsored it. The overflow crowds caused the fire marshals to show up.
As an urban bicyclist, I crisscrossed Brooklyn, from Borough Park to Canarsie. Until the early 2000s, I biked a 20-mile round trip to Brooklyn’s last show in the Golden Gate Motor Inn’s basement— way out in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn’s furthest reaches, just past an odiferous sewage treatment plant. By then Golden Gate had developed an unwholesome reputation as a hot-sheet hotel for lovers’ clandestine rendezvous. In 2010, several years after the shows stopped, the Golden shut down, too— a fitting epithet, it seemed, for both businesses.
At the White Plains show, an enterprising young lad earned a few bucks cleaning dealer's cases,... [+]
Due to personal and professional priorities I lost interest in shows. Besides, who needed them? You could find anything your heart desired at the tip of your fingers on
In White Plains Cal Ripken smiled and draped his arm around each fan like a true gentleman. (Credit... [+]
But then as a Forbes contributor, I resumed going to shows, including the last two National Sports Collectors Conventions in Cleveland and Chicago, respectively, and the Shriners’ in Boston. Closer to home, I frequent JP’s Sports and Rock Solid Promotions every other month in White Plains. Today most large and medium-sized metropolitan areas around the country host big and small shows.
While I still search eBay religiously, I only dabble in it for buying these days. For my money, if I had a few hundred dollars in discretionary income, I’d sooner spend it at a show. Here’s what you can do there:
- Track Real Card Values in Real Time. While eBay and price guides are instructive, seeing is believing. I’ve found buyers and sellers extremely transparent at shows because the wheeling and dealing creates excitement. The knowledge you gain from following the market gives you enormous leverage.
- Learn from Friendly Dealers. I’ve met dozens of dealers and not found a bad apple yet. (Knock on wood.) I have even had some point out imperfections in cards before I made purchases. They aim to please to keep their customers coming back.
Jonathan Celona and Steve Gadzilia of Champion Sports Cards and Collectibles buy, sell and trade... [+]
- Avoid Costly Mistakes. Photos on eBay or on an auction website don’t always do justice, compared to inspecting a baseball card or autograph in person. Even cards with identical numerical grades may have subtle differences like slight printing lines and surface wrinkles that can spell the difference in hundreds or thousands of dollars. Likewise different slants and strokes in authenticated autographs figure prominently in their price.
- Meet Your Heroes in the Flesh. My eyes have popped out in the presence of baseball legends Cal Ripken, Pete Rose, and Bo Jackson; soccer beauties Hope Solo and Christine Press; and Carl Erskine, one of the last surviving Brooklyn Dodgers. The White Plains show hosts 100 live guests per year.
Evidently I wasn't the only adult make with a crush on soccer star Christine Press. (Photo by David... [+]
- Score Valuable Sports Memorabilia. At the White Plains and Chicago shows I found two high-end store model Mickey Mantle gloves, one for $80 and the other for $125, in top condition. I flipped one on eBay and the other on the glove website of my buddy Art Katsapis for a net profit of $645, which paid for my entire trip from New York to Chicago with money to spare. When I showed Josh Evans, the founder of Lelands auction house, one of the gloves in Chicago, he said, “Nobody cares!” (Take that, Josh!) Unlike cards, memorabilia has no price guides, so you can still stand a fighting chance to make a great deal. (See: How Not to Lose Your Shirt at a Baseball Card Show.)
Competing against hundreds of professional dealers and thousands of collectors, I scored this... [+]
- Enjoy Cheap Entertainment. For $10, less than the cost of a movie ticket, admission affords you hours of fun. Immersing myself in vintage sports cards and memorabilia dating back to the 1800s, I can spend three days at a show, totally transfixed by card photos and designs.
- See Huge Wads of Cash. Dealers, collectors, and investors peel off hundred dollar bills as if they’re playing with Monopoly money. At the most recent White Plains show, a favorite dealer of mine spent $9,000 in cash for two 1951 Bowman rookies, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.
That's not Monopoly money, but $8K in hard cash for a deal at the White Plains baseball card show... [+]
- Hold the Crown Jewels. Maybe you’re not one of those high-rollers who can afford $404,000 for a Honus Wagner T206 tobacco card, $200,000 for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle gum card, or $84,000 for a 1920s game-used Babe Ruth Bat. At the White Plains show and at the National I have had the chance to hold three of the hobby’s most iconic pieces.
At the National, I derived a vicarious thrill holding a $400K+ Honus Wagner, the closet I'll ever... [+]
- Watch the Ancient Art of Haggling. My favorite episode occurred between two tough dealers in White Plains negotiating a nice looking 1951 Bowman Mantle. They dickered over every dollar for about a half hour until finally agreeing on $16,000, half in cash. At one point, the buyer left his
Rolex on the seller’s case as collateral while he walked around the show floor to solicit other dealers’ opinions.A dealer left his Rolex on a dealer's table as collateral, so he could get second and third opinions... [+]
- Find Bargains Galore. A dear old friend of mine, Mike Stein, buys vintage postwar baseball cards of Jewish players and players with funny names for under $10. He even finds graded, slabbed commons below that price point. At the most recent White Plains show, he took me to a bin where the cards were 25 cents apiece. For my part I picked up a beautiful baseball signed by one of my all-time favorite Mets, Bud Harrelson, for $10, about a quarter of its cost on eBay. The dealer acquired it from cleaning out a delinquent storage unit.
A grandmother buys her granddaughter three baseball card rack packs for a dollar. (Photo by David... [+]
- Talk Sports with Kindred Spirits. Chuck Blue, a dealer, and I discussed whether Willie Mays would have broken Babe Ruth’s home run record had he not lost two years to the military in his early prime and had not played in the windswept Candlestick Park, a graveyard for power hitters. Jonathan Celona from Champion Sports Cards and Collectibles and I debated who was better, Seaver or Nolan Ryan. (Seaver, hands down).
I wasn't expecting to find another Mickey Mantle obscenity autograph at Roger Centrowitz's table in... [+]
- Make New Friends. I’m on a first-name basis with most of the dealers and the promoters in White Plains. I know where they live, what they collect, and what happened to their childhood collections. In the evenings we dine together on good Italian or Chinese food and revel in endless conversation about, you guessed it: Baseball cards.
Soccer hero Hope Solo waited patiently for a boy's dad to position his son on a table in White... [+]
