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It’s been over a month since I’ve been on Net54 (thanks for noticing), and haven’t been able to attend any shows for awhile, so here’s the next best thing.
Emulating how
The Who assembled and cleaned up a bunch of unreleased recordings to create their
‘Odds & Sods’ album, I have taken the same approach and gave a good scrub to some of my own
‘outtakes’ from various shows over the last year or so to make them presentable
(and entertaining?) for a two-part offering.
But Elms, why are some of these observations so long?
Because I’m old school and don’t cut it down for the quick-read, tiny phone set. I put it all out there
(with graphics and whatnot) for my fellow big screen devotees.
Plus, since
no one reads this thread anyway, isn’t it better to have all of the material in one place, so you can
NOT read all of it at the same time?
But for anyone actually making it through to the end of Part II, at least you’ll understand why in tarnation this random graphic is here...
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1. Call Me Henny Old-Man
My health sucks, so now I have a
glucose monitor unceremoniously stapled to the back of my frickin’ arm.
When its screaming alarm announces my blood sugar problems to the world,
it is bitterly annoying...sort of like having to sit through a
caterwauling Katy Perry song blasting from the car next to you at a stoplight.
So when it suddenly sounded at a packed table, the screeching broke the silence and startled everyone!
Nobody had a clue where the high-pitched squeals were coming from.
“What is THAT??!! Did someone pull the fire alarm??!!”
(Slyly hitting the ‘off’ button) I reacted with dismay,
“Dammit, it’s my ankle monitor!! (Ha! They can’t see my ankles...although their eyes did instinctively glance downward.) Now I’m in trouble!! My parole officer knows I left my goddamn house!!!”
Hurriedly handing the card I was examining back to the dealer, I apologized,
“Sorry, man, I really gotta go!!,” and made a show of grabbing my stuff and heading away from the table and through the crowd,
presumably towards the exit.
I guess a better man would’ve stopped and went back with a smile and said,
“Ha ha! Only kidding, guys!” and shared a joyous laugh with everyone.
But screw that!! I decided instead to just go on my merry way and leave them
scratching their heads and confused as to what it was they had just witnessed.
Since then, I occasionally find myself gazing up at the night sky and wondering,
“Do any of the people there that day tell their pals about the wild time they ran into the ‘card collecting convict’ at a show in the mall??”
(The tale would certainly fit into a parallel universe’s version of “Observations from the Card Show Front Lines.”)
Postscript: I have since learned how to modulate the volume and avoid such scenarios in the future. However, it would be fun
pulling the same gag on new audiences.
Maybe I could turn it into a bit of
schtick, sort of my version of
“Take my wife...please” to make random showgoers howl??
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2. Wheels of Fortune?
Like the baggage carousel kicking to life shortly after an airplane lands, there is suddenly a
great abundance of suitcases now appearing at card shows.
The modern areas have scores of people wheeling around
carry-on luggage pieces as they attempt to offload the incredibly valuable
(your opinion may vary) wares packed inside to interested dealers...
but who are we kidding? Fellow showgoers make up a huge part of their target market.
Asking a dealer if it bothers him that these guys haven’t paid to set up, but get all of the great exposure to customers for free, he was unfazed.
“I’m busy dealing...and wheeling (yes, it was peculiar how he switched the order of that phrase around) all day,
so I barely notice. Doesn’t have any impact on my bottom line.”
And in a mocking tone,
“Have you seen what they got? It’s probably just trash no one’s gonna buy anyway. I say let the kids play.”
Golden Opportunity for Future Merriment:
Somebody really needs to fill one of the spare compartments in their card suitcase with a
bunch of socks, underwear and t-shirts. So when the right moment presents itself at a show,
they can pretend to reach in to grab cards, but instead pull out a handful of
clothes and exclaim,
“Darn it, guys!! I brought the wrong suitcase!!!!!” to the uproarious laughter of the assembled masses.
Remember, you always regret the giggles you
DON’T give people.
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3. A Tale of Two (Actually Three) Kiddies
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Part I: Taking Benjamins from a Baby
When I was young, the cereal aisle regularly witnessed me begging my mom to
pay the extra twenty cents and buy
Froot Loops instead of the cardboardy store brand
“Fruity Circ-O’s” (or whatever sadly imitative name they were given), but my pleas would be met with a glare of
“Go f*ck yourself!!”
(Benny Franklin would’ve loved my mother. She considered every penny saved as being earned.)
But kids today are clueless about such indignities. If mom is headed to the supermarket after yoga class, they’ll just
Venmo over cash and order her to buy whatever effin’ sugary cereal they feel like drowning in milk the next morning.
I know this because
kids just keep blatantly forking over bundles of greenbacks to dealers at shows for shiny new things. By never thinking twice about laying out huge sums of money,
I swear the only thing separating these
baby-faced barons from
Mr. Monopoly is a top hat and an elegantly curved mustache.
Price means nothing to them!
One
Junior Moneybags was looking on with great annoyance while the dealer carefully counted the stack of bills he had just handed him. Apparently feeling a bit
‘dissed’ by the seller’s diligence,
he met the eyes of onlookers and gave a perturbed, theatrical show of,
“Can you believe this guy??!!” and glibly declared,
“It’s all there, bro.”
A child unable to grow facial hair was being dismissively patronizing to a 40+ year old man??
When a show is on the horizon, I have to
root through old birthday cards from my long-gone
grandma in the hopes of discovering a missed
five dollar bill tucked inside of one. Finding a
lost Abe is the only way I’m able to finance my purchases, but who’s bankrolling these
middle school moguls?
Since they’re
devoid of price-sensitivity, Lord help us if these
infant industrialists start directing the
wads of dough spilling out of their pockets towards paying the
ridiculous sticker prices on vintage cards!!
No dealer would
ever need to lower their outrageous prices again and my collecting days would be over!!!
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Part II: To the Victor Go the Foils (Gold Foils, that is, Numbered 1 of 1)
Overhearing one
tweener tycoon cockily bragging about how he took someone for a ride
(his words, not mine) in a trade, I realized
it’s not the age of the shark that matters, but the size of the teeth.
Since he was speaking
modern flipper lingo, what exactly the great
‘steal’ was wasn’t apparent to my vintage ears, but I gathered he was able to
grab a more expensive (refractor or chrome or prism or whatever) parallel in the deal than what the other guy thought it was??
Something along those lines. His trade partner unknowingly shortchanged himself by making a
low valuation mistake, and
the great white kid-shark swam in and took a big bite outta him!
When his pal
(who apparently has a moral compass) asked if he felt bad about ripping the guy off, the
squeaky-voiced capitalist replied,
“If the card was the (less expensive) one he thought it was,
then he was trying to rip ME off by making the trade value so high. Do I feel bad about getting him?? No!! It’s either burn or get burned.”
Whoa!! These kids are wise and jaded well beyond their years.
Be careful out there, everyone.
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Part III: My Way or the Thoroughfare-way
Another
rugrat huckster was hot to trot
(away) as he played a game of threatening to leave if the dealer didn’t
buy the card he was offering him at such a great bargain. The interaction was upbeat, but insistent and accented by a lot of
posturing.
He kept teasing the same result,
“This is your last chance to buy this great card. Once I walk away, you’ll regret it and never see me again.”
From the cheap seats, I was intrigued watching it play out. If the
hustling ragamuffin had a smudge of dirt on his face, I would’ve sworn I was in a production of
‘Oliver Twist,’ so let me attempt to translate his
disappointment with the dealer’s refusal to buy his card into the musings of
Charles Dickens:
“Good sir, I daresay thou art failing to grasp the merit of my offer to part with this ballplayer for such a trifling of farthings. Thou protest too heartily to my asketh price, which would make me suffer a loss whilst fortune smiles in your favor alone.
Alas, I shall skedaddle (okay, that word’s mine, not Chuck’s) to seek a more suitable fellow who properly values my endeavors to greatly enhance his finances. I bid thee farewell, and thou shalt behold my countenance nevermore.”
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4. Renaissance Art Humor
While shooting the breeze with a dealer, he asked if I was interested in seeing anything.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I told him,
“Don’t take this personally, but I came up with what I hope is a funny insult to get laughs. Is it alright if I try it out on you?”
Hiding a grimace, he encouraged me to proceed.
Thus, in my best
Rodney Dangerfield delivery, I hit him with,
“Your prices are so obscene, you should put a fig leaf over your price stickers!” (Hey-oooooh!!!!)
Unfortunately, my top-shelf humor didn’t elicit the big guffaw it rightfully deserved, but sticking to the theme of the gag, his reaction was one of
sheer modesty.
Speaking of no respect...
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5. Easy Snyder
This was a first. I rolled into a table and kept finding more and more duplicate
1959 high numbers staring back at me. The box of toploaders continued surrendering up
Gene Snyders,
Howie Nunns and multitudes of other players,
which was so wildly unexpected that I took a picture after only venturing a part way through it.
Lord knows how many more doubles were waiting to be uncovered.
I have never before seen such an abundance of high number riches from that particular year...but it made me wonder,
how come there’s no love for 1959 highs???
Whereas collectors go bananas not only chasing the stars, but also the ‘regular’ high number players from the
1961, 1966, 1967, 1972 (and other) sets, do you know anyone who vigorously goes after
1959 high series cards?
I sure don’t.
The focus, of course, is on the epic
Bob Gibson rookie, the next number on the checklist,
#515 Harmon Killebrew, and the
All-Star greats garner the requisite attention, but what about the lackluster players who were
marooned on last series island?
Unlike
high number scrubs from other years, they fly so far under the radar that they’re completely disregarded.
As a collector, it’s depressing that they aren’t held in higher esteem.
Don’t want to get too
New-Agey here, but you know how after
your girl screams like hell at you for days on end, you decide to show some
kindness and finally apologize for sending
naked pictures of her to your
softball buddies?
Like that, sometimes you have to go out of your way to offer
a little compassion. So next time you spot an oft-ignored
1959 high number at a show, pick it up, hold the card close to your heart and
let him know he’s appreciated.
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6. You Gotta Better Nitpick Your Battles
During my time at that table, I witnessed a spirited buyer pushing the weak points of an
SGC-graded 1959 Ernie Banks in an attempt to get the price lowered, but the fact the card was
already wearing a number in a slab seemed to escape him.
As he repeatedly stressed the
soft corners and the
not-so-great centering, he wanted a big price drop, but the dealer remained unmoved. However, after finally having enough,
he
(politely) countered with,
“Yes, what you’re saying is probably true...and that’s why it is ‘only’ (he let the word hang in the air for an eternity) an SGC 5. If it had better
corners, it would’ve gotten a higher grade and been more expensive. It’s a five priced as a five. Why do you act like I’m trying to get five money for a three or four??”
No reaction.
“The points you make would work if the Banks was ungraded (admittedly, he used the word “raw,” but I abhor that silly descriptor). If the price was too high for what grade it MIGHT get, then I’d consider easing up a bit, but they called this one a five, so a five it is.”
The odd thing is,
the buyer (he didn’t end up buying it) never said anything about the grade number itself, like perhaps,
“Sure, it’s a five, but it’s a weak five.” Something that could’ve possibly made his case for a price reduction more palatable.
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7. For my next trick, I’ll make your money disappear.
Placing a low-grade, but very expensive
1953 Topps Satchell (sic) Paige back down, a guy was leaving a table with a demure and appreciative,
“Thanks anyway.”
Waiting until it was clear, the dealer gleefully turned to his table partner and said,
“Toldja he was gonna be a ‘no’!”
Motioning to the bunch of us there, the other fellow announced,
“Ladies and gentlemen, I present his majesty, ‘Read the Wallet Guy.’ Never gets it wrong!”
I asked,
“Read the wallet guy??”
“When someone is negotiating with us, right from the start he’ll know exactly whether or not the guy will bite and lay out the money when we cut the price down.
It’s an innate gift. He’ll give me a thumbs up or thumbs down, and I swear to Jesus, he’s right every time.”
I asked,
“Okay, so I’m safe? It only comes into play when a negotiation is taking place.”
“Correct.”
“Couldn’t he basically always guarantee a sale will happen if he simply lowers the price to match the comps everyone is looking at? That’s an easy out, no?”
With mock indignation,
“He NEVER cheats.”
When I asked what happens when the card is just priced so high that it doesn’t matter if the guy can afford it or not, it’s just a bad deal, he replied,
“Well, I didn’t say it was a perfect system.”
That made me laugh.
Turning to the
‘wallet whisperer,’ I wondered,
“Okay, am I going to buy something?”
He thought for a second and offered a smiling and decisive,
“Nope.”
I said,
“Too bad. That’s the right answer, but it’s the WRONG answer. You should’ve said “yes,” and dared me to prove you wrong by NOT buying something while everyone’s watching.
That pressure may have swayed me, so you just cost yourself some coin!!”
That made
HIM laugh.
End of Part I...