[JollyElm]

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There was another show in town, and although I only bought four measly cards, I hung in there endlessly looking for topics to cover, and I now present the results of my observations and interactions.
Since this is just waaaaaaay too long, if you decide to quickly pull the ripcord to save yourself, I swear I won’t take it personally!!!


1. Today’s Show Sponsor: Emily Post
Here is something I never thought I would say. In this maelstrom of a jam-packed show, I cannot believe how very (I mean over-the-top) polite the attendees were. We all know that walking the floor of one of these things is tantamount to being a fleshy pinball, with your person being bounced around non-stop. But at this show, it didn’t matter how softly someone bumped into me, or even if they caught themselves FROM bumping into me, the whole day was an endless refrain of “Sorry!” or “Whoops! My fault.” or “Excuse me!” or “My apologies!” A British sounding guy even made room to allow me to pass, and with a sweeping flourish of a hand gesture said, “By your leave.”

I have absolutely no explanation for any of this.


2. Rapporical Question Redux (refer to post #37 in this thread)
A guy saw my Mets hat bobbing in the crowd and yelled out, “A Mets fan, hey!!” Assuming he called out to me because my orange and blue is a rare sight out here, so he must be a fellow fan, I decided to give his table a look-see. Asking me the obligatory question of who my all time favorite Met is, I said, “Dave Kingman, DUH!” His face immediately froze into a ‘How the heck could I possibly know that?’ gaze. And then he broke my heart by talking about ‘Kong’ on the frickin’ Cubs, not the Mets!! The Cubs!! That got me grumbling, but even worse was when he suddenly called out, “A Cardinals fan, hey!!,” followed by a moment later, “A Bears fan, hey!!,” so it didn’t matter what insignia you were wearing, you were only a target. What a bummer...I thought I was special.


3. Failed Punnery
Along the same lines, someone else seeing my ‘Steal Your Face’ shirt tried to draw me in by happily saying, “You going to any of the Dead shows coming up? I can’t wait!!” Not having the heart to squash his enthusiasm by saying my live Dead Head days ended when Jerry died in ‘95, I instead brought it ‘round to baseball cards by saying, “No, but I am looking for Haight-SLASHbury...(long silence and a vacant stare)...you know, pricewise...SLASH-bury...slashed prices...get it??”

Wow, that didn’t get even a ripple (see what I did there?) of a laugh. I guess some comedians are just not appreciated in their own time.


4. Loftier Slab Delusion (LSD)
Since we’re on the topic of hallucinogenic narcotics, as I kept on truckin’ (see what I did there?) along, I saw a guy with his nose in the books (which these days means continually staring at images and data on an iPad while tapping away at the keyboard) who kept excitedly saying things to his buddy like, “This one definitely should be a 7...and that one’s a minimum of a 6,” as he pointed to cards the dealer had removed from his display case for him.

Since the cards he was talking about had lower numbers on the slabs than the numbers he was saying, his intent was clearly to buy the cards, break them out and resubmit them to get bigger numbers and rake in the dough.

Talk about a doomed experiment in lunacy. There were two basic things he wasn’t even considering at all:
1) The prices on the cards he was targeting were marked up by the dealer as if the numbers on the slabs were (at a minimum) three digits higher. That’s why no one bought them yet!! You can’t pay ridiculously high prices for cards, crack them out to resubmit for higher numbers, and be able to make a profit. You’re into the cards for way too much money and it’ll cost even more to have them graded. Do the math!!!!
2) There is no way in heck you can be sure to get a higher grade (let alone the same grade) on a resubmission!!!!!

Let me foreshadow what will appear later in this post, every single one of us collectors is mentally deranged.


5. Glut Reaction or The 49ers and the Gold Crush

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I hate the San Francisco 49ers.

In the wake of the Super Bowl loss, I approached this huge set-up of 49ers merch (enough surplus to clothe an army) and said, “My teams are in New York, so not looking to buy anything, but wanted to ask you how your sales are going. You really got a ton of stuff.”

Busying himself with neatening the piles, he offered, “The Niners were unstoppable. I really thought we were going to take it this year...but that (Super Bowl) Sunday ruined my life. I can’t believe they blew it in overtime!! I really loaded up on shirts, hats and jackets for shows, especially the huge one next month at The Cow Palace, and I was going to make a killing, but it’ll be a stretch just to break even now.”

I asked, “So, are you stuck with everything?”

“Yes and no. Learned my lesson after those damn Chiefs beat us the first time, so I only bought a few ‘Super Bowl Winner’ things, so that was smart, and just a bunch of these ‘NFC Champs’ pieces,” as he showed me a hat, “which will definitely sell. But the big problem is a victory would’ve really allowed me to increase my prices (he suddenly caught himself)...I mean, not just me, every seller of the red and gold would’ve done the same thing......to ride the gravy train, you know??”

I felt a little bad for the capitalist in him, but my brain was yelling, “Think you got it bad??? Try being a Bills fan like me!!!” Instead, I offered a less emotional, “It’s natural to underestimate the malaise that follows a loss, because even though they had a great season, that failure rips your heart out and you want nothing to do with the team you love. It takes a while for that love to find its way back home. (Wow! I’m sure there must’ve been a smug look on my face as I thought of what a great philosopher/poet I had become!) It happens every single year with me and the Buffalo Bills!!!”

Apparently, things could get even worse for him. With exasperation, he also threw in, “And if any of these guys end up on other teams (he had a wide variety of shirts with player names and numbers on them), their shelf-life has already ended and into the furnace they go!!”

He bid me adieu with a bit of a sad gleam in his eye, “Guess I’m gonna have to tell my wife it’s going to be at least another year before we can buy our winery up in Napa.”

Trying to grab an exiting laugh, I said, “Well, better luck next ‘over’ time!!”

I hate the San Francisco 49ers.


6. Who Knew Cardboard Ripened Like a Piece of Fruit?
Curious that a seller’s discount bin prices had been edited out and elevated (he artfully and seamlessly turned his “4 For $20!!!” signs into “3 For Only $20!!!” signs), I asked him why he did that. He replied “Spring traniing is in full swing (man, he missed a golden opportunity to add “pun intended”), so the excitement is in the air. Gotta make the bucks while the cards are in season.”


7. A Joke of a Woke Bloke (Literally, a BLOKE!)
It’s with regret that I have to report that the bullshit has reached our cardboard shores and is invading the hobby we love.

It started simply enough. Walking up to a table, I smiled and said to the old guy (it’s depressing that even though my immediate thought was “old,” he’s probably only a year or two older than I am...ugh!!)), “I’m cheap. Please tell me you have some piles of seriously discounted vintage I can look through?” He chuckled and said (as he pointed), “Ha!! Honesty goes a long way with me. Don’t have much, but check that box over there when he’s done with it. I’ll give you a deal.” That was it. The most simple and straightforward reply ever, right?

Wrong!! Apparently, it was a trigger to unleash outrage, because the college-aged manboy twerp of an a-hole he had pointed to stopped looking through the cards and practically screamed at him, “My pronouns are “THEY”!!!!!!!”

In the stunned silence that followed, my brain told me I had a couple of options to have the dealer’s back. Do I take the grammatical route and state that “they” is only a single pronoun, so why in f*ck did he use the plural term “my pronouns are”??? But instead, I started loudly calling back to the dealer (who didn’t deserve this woke BS) as many words denoting “male” as I could quickly think of in rapid-fire succession, “Do you mean the bin in front of HIM?? HE still has a long way to go with it. This fine SIR still has a ton of cards to go through. Should I ask HIM if HE’S done yet??” Turning to this twerpy a-hole of a f*ck, I said, “My MAN, are you almost done??”

It was so obvious that this twerp-ass version of a ‘Karen’ spends his days looking for any chance he can get to spew this insanity, because the “they” bullet was sitting in the chamber waiting to be fired.

He and his friend stormed off all butt hurt from being called out on their bullshit. As is often the case, you later think of things you should’ve said. Were it to happen again (sadly, it will), next time I’m going to call out, “That’s right, go home to mommy!!! Remember, SHE’s the one who DOESN’T have a f*cking PENIS!!!”

The dealer bemoaned that he can’t believe what’s happened to the world and, “I try to stay away from the mentally ill.” Going for a laugh to ease the tension, I offered the trite, “You do realize that every single collector, myself included, is mentally ill, right?? No normal person would enjoy this crap.”

It only elicited a sad, half-hearted chuckle, but I tried. It’s the thought that counts.


8. Airport Conveyances and the Common Man or Fly Walk the Friendly Skies Aisles.
Being held at an airport hotel again, this show made me realize how great it’d be if they would deploy some of the fine airline industry technology to improve the lives of showgoers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if moving walkways or ‘people-movers’ were installed down the middle of the rows/aisles across the entire show floor?? Imagine if you will, all the aimlessly-wandering, lookie-loo, aisle-clogging impediments being automatically pushed forward and out of your way so as not to continually and cluelessly block the paths and keep you from getting to where you wanted to go?

It’s only a dream, but ‘tis a really lovely dream.


9. Interesting Eavesdrop (But I wasn’t frickin’ eavesdropping!!)
There’s a dealer who’s set up at every conceivable show out here, with his main draw being the various large bins of stars proclaiming “50% OFF Marked Prices!!!!” (what I derisively call ‘Bogus Halfsies,’ because cutting the godawfully high prices in half does nothing). A friend of his was borrowing his ear to seek input on his attempt to start a new grading company. (They both made quite a few indirect references to his family’s money and whatnot, so the guy seems to have a few bucks to throw around.)

His idea is to assemble a bunch of serious hobbyists (cardboarderati?) to use as official graders of vintage cards. It was strange, because as he was talking about financial specifics, he kept hushing his voice and looking around to make sure no one was listening...but I was right in front of him, literally the depth of the tabletop away. Am I invisible??? Was I “Griffin” in H. G. Wells’ fantastical tale?? Felt like waving my arms around and saying, “Helloooooooooo!!!!! Can you NOT see me???????” The whole thing was just plain weird.

He wants to beta test his idea by removing cards from their slabs and having trusted hobbyists (like the dealer he was conversing with) grade each one and submit their findings, along with notes explaining why/how they arrived at the numbers they did. It would allow him to compare everyone’s findings, and see how in line the grades were with what the TPGs originally deemed the cards to be.

He kept trying to turn it into a Lincolnian (is that a word?) pursuit by repeating a few times how it would be "of the collectors, by the collectors and for the collectors."

My immediate thought was, “Wouldn’t ‘Honest Abe’ see this type of cronyism grading as ‘dishonest,’ since unwarranted higher grades would likely result in order to make the self-interested owners’ cards worth more??” But, alas, they didn’t ask for my input due to the cloak of invisibility I was apparently draped in. Too bad.


10. The Card's in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon
Collectors on net54 are always discussing the ‘health’ of the hobby and how they love seeing the younger generation taking the reigns and driving it forward. Honestly, that stuff means nothing to me, but I still had quite a strange realization. As I overheard a young boy negotiating at a modern cards table behind me (you couldn’t help BUT overhear, because his very high and squeaky voice pierced the air), he ended his part of the negotiation with (his serious and businesslike tone unmistakeable), “Okay, what’s the absolute lowest you can go on this card for me?”

WHOA!! I realized this kid sounded EXACTLY like a younger version of me!! Like a younger version of us all!!

A tear practically came to my eye, and all I could hear in my head was Harry Chapin’s rueful lamentation:
“And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me”


11. But Wanna Feel Even Older??
Another kid trying to sell stuff to a dealer said, “I got some really old cards for you to look at.”

He replied, “What do you have?”

“Some early Mike Trouts.”

Allow that to sink in, won’t you? EARLY Mike Trouts. A quick look at Wikipedia shows Mr. Trout started in the MLB in 2011, barely over a decade ago...and he was only born in 1991!!!! That was just a blink of an eye ago, but this guy acted as if his career had begun in the 19th century.

Early Mike Trout cards are considered REALLY OLD by younger people???????

Might be time for me to double up on my Geritol tonight.


12. Mom Told Me Decimal Points Were Supposed to be Our Friends

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All card show prices are mystifying, but some card show prices are more mystifyingly mystifying than others.

Someone had a 1961 Topps #579 Willie Mays All-Star PSA 7 OC which was on display as the centerpiece (offcenterpiece?) of his showcase and it was listed for an astounding $4000.00. Yes, three zeros separated the four from the faraway decimal point. It had the obligatory “High Number!!!!” on it in an attempt (I guess) to explain his ‘perfectly reasonable’ price.

Since there was no comma present, I thought it was maybe possible that he unknowingly added an extra zero when he was clicking away on his price gun?? However, that theory quckly fell by the wayside, since even a $400.00 price on such a card is super bonkers.

Tell me, how would you even ask the seller if he had any wiggle room on such a price? You would need something along the lines of the ***LOCAL REFERENCE ALERT*** 1906 San Francisco earthquake’s (estimated) 7.9 magnitude to even begin to make such a ridiculously towering price wiggle.


13. Time Lapse Showtography
And speaking of pricing, every single one of us knows how ridiculously high the prices are at shows, and we bitch and moan about it religiously. It’s our God-given right as collectors.

Since the vast majority of the dealers out here (everywhere?) have the exact same cards with the exact same stupid prices at every single show, maybe it’s time for an experiment. To prove nothing changes, maybe we should start taking pictures of their displays at each outing and see what percentage (gotta be close to 100%) of the same cards still remain in their cases at the next show and the show after, and so on. It would be like taking a picture of New York City from 100 years ago and comparing it to one taken today, and NOTHING has changed (except for it being in color, not black and white)!!!!!


14. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to delete it.
While a couple of friends were discussing a 1968 Roger Maris one of them was thinking of buying, it became obvious the other guy (in his mid-thirties if he was a day) had absolutely no idea who Maris was. His blank stare seemed to indicate he may not have ever heard the name before. Outfitted in a weathered Giants hat and holding vintage cards, it would appear to anyone that he ‘knew’ baseball, but his friend kept trying to get a reaction out of him by saying things like, “On the Yanks with Mickey Mantle??,” “Two MVPs??,” “You know, the home run guy?? Sixty one??,” to try to jog his memory. But the response was, “I thought that was that Aaron guy??” Yes, he said “that Aaron guy.” So he probably knows nothing about ‘Hammerin’ Hank’ either.

I honestly don’t ever recall being around a grown baseball fan who had no clue who Roger Maris was.


15. The (Send Away) Good, The (Send Away) Bad and The (Send Away) Ugly
And finally, amid the tidal wave of table-hoppers trying to sell their cards to dealers, you got used to the polite, and not so polite, ways dealers would rebuff these merchants. One guy showed three distinctly different ways of ‘ridding’ his table of sales reps...

1) Someone brought over a box of vintage stuff and said he got an offer of $3,100 for the lot and asked if he would be willing to offer more. The dealer started going through the cards while punching up numbers on his calculator to arrive at what he felt he could reasonably sell the lot for. He concluded the slabbed cards didn’t have enough rock solid value and the ungraded stuff was in rough shape, so it wouldn’t be worth the fees to get them graded, and he’d have to sell them as is. “I wouldn’t be able to sell everything for the amount they offered you, so the deal they gave you is good.” He followed up with, “You don’t know me, so go over to that guy (pointing to the ubiquitous dealer I mentioned in the ‘I Wasn't Eavesdropping’ section) for a second opinion. He’s always buying. Ask him if he wants to beat the offer. I can guarantee he won’t, so you’ll see I’m being straight with you.”

Quite the professionalism on display.

2) Another intrepid young salesman interrupted (rude!) to ask if he’d be interested in his modern cards. This time the dealer said, “You know, that stuff just isn’t right for me, but it’s right down my buddy Joe’s alley, so you should ask him.” Rising to scan the floor, he pointed toward a heavily trafficked corner of the venue and softly ushered the kid away with, “Yeah, I think he’s over there. Definitely go see him. Good luck!”

I inquired, “Does your friend really have a table over there?” His reply made me (literally) LOL. “I don’t think I actually know anyone named Joe, but it’s one of the most popular names ever. Somebody over there at one of those tables must be named Joe, right??”

Ha!! I guess there are only so many times you can politely shoo away people before deciding it’s time to expedite the process. Sometimes I lay awake at night laughing, thinking about that guy on an endless quest to find a table manned by a mythical seller with “Joseph” on his birth certificate.

3) Lastly, I have no idea what preceded it, but some guy bolted from his table all upset and pushing through the crowd as he tightly grasped his small case of cards with both hands, and loudly howled, “I refuse to be held hostage!!!!!!”

Yowza!! No one had any clue what elicited such a reaction, and it was a very uncomfortable aftermath. The good news is a bunch of us got a good laugh out of it, which is nice!!

So, to end my day at the show, I leaned in and said, “For a laugh, you should prominently tie a yellow ribbon around something in your booth!”




Until next time, my fellow collectors!! If you see Joe, give him my best.