{"id":6175,"date":"2020-02-03T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T10:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/2020\/02\/03\/inside-the-pack-what-to-expect-at-a-baseball-card-show\/"},"modified":"2020-02-03T10:00:43","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T10:00:43","slug":"inside-the-pack-what-to-expect-at-a-baseball-card-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/inside-the-pack-what-to-expect-at-a-baseball-card-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Pack: What to Expect at a Baseball Card Show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Two Saturdays ago was a rare perfect storm of baseball card shows in my area, with 3 really good shows within an hour or so of my house. I decided to go to the show at The Villages, a large retirement community that encompasses a whole city in the center of the state. While I was there, I overheard multiple customers mention either that it was their first show in decades, or the first time they had ever gone to a baseball card show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I thought of my friend \u2014 the one I wrote about who started collecting last year because of Allen and Ginter. He went to his first show in White Plains, NY, last year, and peppered me beforehand with questions about what to expect. If you\u2019re someone who hasn\u2019t been to a show in a few decades, or if you\u2019ve never been to a show, here are some helpful hints for you as you embark on your journey.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bring plenty of cash.<\/strong> Many dealers will accept credit cards and PayPal, but it\u2019s still the case that cash is king. Dealers will often be more willing to give discounts when you pay with cash, and you\u2019ll also avoid any situations in which you spend time looking at a table, try to buy something with a card, and get told that they have to charge a processing fee on top of the agreed-upon price. Additionally, it\u2019s always smart to bring some small bills and not just $20s and up. Dealers have a finite amount of change, and sometimes they may not be able to break your larger bill.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be friendly to everyone.<\/strong> This is a good rule just for life, you know? But also, it\u2019s particularly applicable for baseball card shows. When I deal with a customer who is kind, I\u2019m more likely to give that customer a deal. You shouldn\u2019t be kind only to dealers \u2014 do the same with other customers. Nothing annoys me more when I\u2019m shopping at a card show looking through a box and someone else starts to look through the same box as me; it\u2019s against the unwritten rules of card shows. That said, if another customer asks what I have looked at in that box so that they can look after me, I go out of my way to make sure to hurry help and to help find what they\u2019re looking for. At the show on Saturday, a gentleman had this interaction with me and, after learning he was looking for Rickey Henderson cards, I started pulling out Rickeys every time I came across them, saving him time and preventing him from having to look through every single box.<\/li>\n<li><strong>If you\u2019re looking for something specific, and ask for it.<\/strong> Dealers set up hours before you\u2019ve shown up to the show, and they typically walk around from table to table in the morning. They\u2019re also pretty frequently friends with each other. If you\u2019re looking for cards of a certain player or from a particular set, but don\u2019t see it on a dealer\u2019s table, it\u2019s helpful to ask. While the dealer may not have it, it\u2019s possible for you to get referred to someone who does have it. I do this as a dealer frequently, and others do it for me as well.<\/li>\n<li><strong>If you\u2019re looking to find things to resell, keep an open mind.<\/strong> You never know what will turn up when you\u2019re not looking for it. On Saturday, I bought some vintage New York Mets pins, giveaways, and even a tie clip. The price was good and I felt I could make money on them, even though I don\u2019t know much about them and never imagined that\u2019s what I\u2019d walk away from the show with.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bring a bag, backpack, and\/or box.<\/strong> Many dealers will have plastic bags, but those rip when stuffed with plastic top loaders. Some will have paper lunch bags, but those don\u2019t have handles. In both cases, if cards aren\u2019t protected properly, you could end up with dinged corners. I usually bring one or two boxes and maybe a plastic snap case, and then stick them in a drawstring bag I wear on my back. That way, loose cards can go in the box for protection and I get to keep my hands free as I look on other tables.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two Saturdays ago was a rare perfect storm of baseball card shows in my area, with 3 really good shows within an hour or so of my house. I decided to go to the show at The Villages, a large retirement community that encompasses a whole city in the center of the state. While I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"amp_validity":null,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}