[Exhibitman]

At the National this year I spent a good deal of time at the tables at the far side and back of the hall where the newer dealers are relegated by the priority system. They mostly have modern cards and lower cost cards. One of them told me that the dealers in that end of the room call the front of the room where the old guard vintage card dealers are "The Dead Zone" because they have comparatively low traffic and always look so depressed and miserable. I have to agree. At times you could fire a shotgun down some of the rows at the front of the hall and barely hit anyone, but I had to go toe to toe to get into some of the booths at the back. Not a problem: modern collecting has always been the gateway to vintage. When the newbies get tired of picking up Mike Trout cards because he's the next Mantle, they will start looking at Mantle cards, and so on down to the earliest cards.