The National Sports Collectors Convention is considered by collectors, dealers and sports memorabilia companies to be the hobby’s Mecca, the most important annual event. Indeed it is. The massive gathering offers millions of products, aggressive buying by cash-laden dealers, auctions, a broad selection of in-person autograph signers and a generally magnificent time for those of us obsessed with cardboard commemoratives of those who really play the game.
But what it isn’t is a good place to get a great deal on trading cards … or memorabilia.
Before going to my first National in 2002 I had been told “The National has it all. Stuff you never see any more or can’t find anywhere else.” That part was true. What the dealers wanted for these items was and remains a whole ‘nother story.
Prices for items at The National were well in excess of what I could find them for in a local card shop and exponentially more than in online venues such as eBay. It makes sense really, that a dealer would need to get more for an item after incurring travel and hotel expenses to be at the convention. A dealer leaving his shop to hit the road to Cleveland or Chicago to do the Big Show still has to pay the bills back at his brick-and-mortar shop and incur all those travel expenses. (And we all know how much the peanuts are in the mini-bar.)
Perhaps it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand, of taking the flea market mindset of catching a deal off the table and instead looking at the event more as an opportunity to mingle among your own and see some of sports’ true luminaries. Value the opportunity to learn from seasoned dealers and collectors, score some swag from card makers hyping their brands, and maybe finding that truly rare piece you’ve always wanted.
Just be prepared to pay a hefty price for it when you do. Remember, you’re at The National.
The National is August 3-7 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois.
