[011873]

I was there for four days and came home with a ton of stuff. Many steals and deals to be had and just about everyone was willing to negotiate.

I did notice a drop off from the typical amount of tables found at past chicago nationals. I guess there was a financial reason why the olympic dealers where there because it makes no sense. The area they were in took up a lot of space. Never was that area ever the least bit crowded.

The proximity to the airport and vast amounts of hotels right there big pluses. The lack of ANYTHING in walking distance is a minus.

In a perfect world, I would take the harbor area from last years national in baltimore and place it in rosemont.

If left to me, the national would always be in chicago or cleveland.

[natejeffries]

No surprise to hear that there was a drop off in dealers. From what I've seen, the majority of the people running the big shows with the big autograph stars - are absolutely killing their dealers. Depending on the show, you are talking about a dealer paying hundreds of dollars for each table they are setting up at. If you have two tables, you need at least two thousand dollars of deals in order for you to make a profit. Unless you bought your cards at 20% book value.

In turn, that means you are going to be offering people less for their cards, and generally unwilling to bargain much with people on your sales.

This is all generalizing. I am glad to hear there were a lot of deals at this show.

In the long run, high prices for dealers to set up their tables, means less deals and fewer dealers staying in the game.

I was there for four days and came home with a ton of stuff. Many steals and deals to be had and just about everyone was willing to negotiate.

I did notice a drop off from the typical amount of tables found at past chicago nationals. I guess there was a financial reason why the olympic dealers where there because it makes no sense. The area they were in took up a lot of space. Never was that area ever the least bit crowded.

The proximity to the airport and vast amounts of hotels right there big pluses. The lack of ANYTHING in walking distance is a minus.

In a perfect world, I would take the harbor area from last years national in baltimore and place it in rosemont.

If left to me, the national would always be in chicago or cleveland.