I guess a little background on me is pertinent also. I started setting up at shows at the ripe old age of 14 back in the late 80's. Like all the other idiots I was basically cracking wax and selling the cards, and thought I was a genius.
I was lucky in two ways. First I was always drawn to older stuff, so while I was cracking 1987 Topps and 1989 Donruss I was using the profits to buy 1960's, which for me seemed ancient.
Second the collapse coincided with my college years. My last big unopened purchase was 1989 Upper Deck. I did the occasional show home from college in the summers, I remember the 1990 Fleer Kevin Maas craze lol, but I wasn't rolling tons of money into the stuff, and I was blowing out the Cansecos, Bo Jacksons, Greg Jeffries, and all the other cards we speculated on, so I pretty much escaped unscathed.
For a long time I did the occasional show including the Philly show when it was in Reading (where I was living after attending college there) but I was a pretty early ebay guy.
Ebay did some great stuff for me. selling at a better margin than at a show, but also introducing me to pre war cards, which you almost never saw at small shows. It demystified them and made me want to learn more about them. From there my fate was sealed. I remained an occasional seller on ebay almost strictly in auction format until about 3 years ago.
I decided to give a store a try, and once again had my eyes opened. Why someone is willing to pay more for my store listing than they're willing to bid on my auction listing is beyond me, but it has definitely been my experience.
Recently I left my job and got into selling full-time. This includes doing more shows. It's cool that some of the people who already knew me on here are from shows and some are from ebay, but generally they have the same things to say about me!
Anyway I'm honest to a fault, and that occasionally rubs people the wrong way. But it's cool after years of using net54 as a research reference to actually delve into a community that seems to be as passionate and knowledgeable about cards as anyone could wish.
Hope to meet as many of you as possible on the journey!
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