My National and my National thoughts

 

I often take a vacation around the same time that the National is taking place, yet my vacation never involves going to the National. Why is that?

Well, I've explained it several times already but my thoughts are always worth updating on this thing.

 

Since the vacation and the National often coincide, I usually have some extra time to follow along with what's going on at the National. I do enjoy seeing pictures of all the card displays and the cards that people pick up. And, this time, I really appreciated people like TheWalkingDeadSaga (aka, Eric) and Batboy Glidden (aka, Matthew) displaying their magnificent card acquisitions (like 1952 Mantle kind of magnificent) on Twitter.

 

I especially appreciated it because as a collector that's what I want to see, spectacular cards I'd never see anywhere else and to share in the joy of fellow collectors' acquisitions. And that's what it seems like I'm seeing less and less of every year.

As far as Twitter folks going to the National this time, it seems like they were more interested in showing off ... themselves ... and their buddies. There is a lot of "look who I met" and "the best part of the hobby is the people" and all that. I'm not against anyone making friends but I'm mostly in this hobby to see and find cards. I've got friends, I've got people to talk to, I'm not much of an extrovert, I don't need legions of people or a card posse -- they'll get in the way of me finding cards at the National! For me, a card show is not supposed to be a social mixer. I don't really care who you met, I'd like to see the cards you met.

 

Besides, showing off the people there reminds me of what is sure to be my least favorite part of the National. Consider these two tweets from noted attendees that appeared almost back-to-back:

 

 

OK, no thank you to both of those. Each of them are an excuse to hyperventilate. My time in public these days is usually consistent reinforcement of how people don't know how to act in public anymore. I have a feeling there is a lot of that at the National, if the constant references to lack of grooming habits is any indication.

 

The National is the most populated card show of the year. I loathe crowds, and people hovering around me -- very large people with very large backpack/suitcase objects -- while I look through a 50-cent box would probably send me screaming outside. 

 

Now, if I lived a couple hours away from the National, I'd be there. That's just dumb not to go if you're that close. But to book a flight or drive 11 hours to get there, book a hotel, spend all that money, and then spend all that money on parking, admittance, whatever perks, and the cards you want -- I better enjoy myself every second that I'm there.  

Besides, there are other people I'd rather see than folks I communicate with online on occasion. Sure, those other people are not collectors, but they need to be acknowledged.

While the National was National-ing, I went to see my daughter. The last time I visited she mentioned that there was a card shop close by. I tried to go last time but it was closed.

This time it was open. I never know what I'll find at new card shops. A lot of them have been disappointments. I keep hearing about shops that feature discount boxes and the like, but I haven't spotted many of those. I just don't live in an area populated by hobby shops.

But I walked in with about an hour to spare and quickly found quarter boxes, 50-cent boxes and dollar boxes. I had dropped my wife off at the massive shopping mall and told her I'd return in an hour. I found out that wasn't nearly enough time, but I cut myself off anyway. Hopefully I saved some cards for the next time. There certainly were enough of them.

This is what I fished out:

Some very welcome Kershaws. Around about 2016 I started to lose track of all the Kershaws available. There got to be too many and too many Kershaw kollectors, too. So there is a whole backlog to chase, which I'll never catch up to, but at least there are discount boxes to make me feel better about it.

 

Various random Dodgers. There were a lot of Dodgers to find -- but I have a lot of Dodgers already. The '53 Bowman Campanella tribute is from the 1986 Baseball Cards Magazine repli-card series. It's very nice-looking for not being the actual thing.

The Joe DiMaggio-Babe Herman mash-up is from the 2001 UD Legends Of New York set. I'm not sure if these mashups are more difficult to find then the other cards in the set but I'm assuming so because they are the only ones with Dodgers on them that I still need. They have been so unavailable that I thought I was looking at some gold parallel at first.

 

Some 1980s "needs," although only the 1985 Donruss turned out to be needs. I'm not as clear as I think I am on my final 1986 Fleer needs, I just know they're almost all stars. But I bet at least one of the '86s here is an upgrade. That set likes to chip.

 

A couple of other '80s cards that I knew 100 percent were needs because I have so little of each set. The 1983 Donruss Schmidt is off-center, sure, but I'll take that discount every time. The Seaver is from 1984 Traded. I sure do wish I had acquired that set back in the '80s like I did with the '82, '83 and '85 Traded sets, but I was dumb, chasing girls, and didn't care about cards at the time. 

Red Sox! The Mike Andrews I'll bet is an upgrade in my 1970 Topps set. The David Ross is just a plain cool card and I got the gold version!

 

I also grabbed a couple of other cards that I know a couple of other fellow collectors will enjoy. They be surprises.

Once the hour was up, I sent my wife a text that I'd be there in 15 more minutes. I walked toward the counter to pay up and that's when I spotted a binder filled with cards that were a dollar each. The first page contained two Mookies I didn't have and, dammit, now I need to be here another hour!

But I must be getting old because I closed the binder without much resistance from my brain. The two guys running the shop that day were both significantly younger than me, probably both in their 20s (it looked like the owner was going over some inventory off to the side). That was good because sometimes old shop guys can be ornery/obnoxious/hard-sellers. These guys were pleasant. But, of course, they spent the time I was there talking about stuff I don't care about (did you see what that Ohtani 10 went for?). Graded, graded, graded and more graded. It's great that younger folks are collecting cards but sometimes I get concerned about what the hobby is going to look like in 20 years.

 

There is a lot of graded cards and grading talk at the National. It's all over the place -- I don't know the percentage but there's got to be at least 50 percent of the National that I don't care about at all.

 

The card shop was much more my speed. I had room to roam, cards to find, the place was air-conditioned (unlike the National) and not one single annoyance.

 

This doesn't mean I'll never go to the National. Next year's event is in Cleveland and the last time it was in Cleveland (2018), I actually considered going until I realized the dates conflicted with shipping my kid off to college.

 

So if my first trip there happens, it could happen next year.

 

But if it doesn't, it won't matter. I know there are other card things -- and noncard things -- that are much more my speed.