The 2024 National Review No One Asked For....

[ejs23]

I'm going to lead with the TLDR version: It was good.


Wednesday

Rolled into town mid day Wednesday and checked into my hotel. Stayed at the Hampton Inn in Westlake. Nothing fancy but it was clean, plumbing (including hot water) worked, free WiFi, complimentary breakfast at $150 per night. Good enough, would stay there again.

Go to the I-X Center about 5:30ish to pick up my VIP pass. Huge line, about 200 people deep. The hallway the line was weaving through was hot. Took a while but to the credit of the employees the line did move consistently, even if slowly.

Finally made my way up the escalator to check out the show floor. Looked good. My top priority while attending the show was to sell cards. I'm in a "thinning out my collection" phase so I wanted to move cards. Came upon the KardSharkz booth and decided to give them a try. Sold about 200 cards to them in a quick and easy deal. Could have probably squeezed a little more out of the cards if I had shopped around, but to move 200 that soon into the show was nice. Nice guys, they were fair and transparent in their dealing. I'd sell the them again.

Thursday

Got there early Thursday morning. Yes, I did drive the super-secret-back-way.... but parking was still a mess. Got 2 autos that day (Donnie Shell & John Stallworth). Sold another 150 cards that day. At this point I had made about 20% more than I had expected... so that was a win. Shopped around but tough to find good deals. Still fun.

Left a little early to go back to the hotel to shower. Then out to the Hockey Trade Night. It was small, but a good time. Back bar of a restaurant. Guys who put it on picked up the food and drink (at least as far as I could tell). They did a multi box break and entered everyone into it for free. I had the Rangers. There was a little dude there in a Rangers jersey so I gave all my cards to him. Wasn't much trading there but it was a friendly bunch and a good time.

Then thought I'd try the After Show trade night at the Aviator. Apparently that was a bust. Guess it was cancelled without any kind of notice. Big fail.

Friday

Apparently half the show had VIP passes because the VIP lot wasn't very VIP-ish. Had to park far. Got 3 autos (Blount, Dorsett & Swann). Regarding the Autograph Pavillion, I though it ran smooth. This is were the VIP really paid off for me, cut down on waiting in lines. Did a lot of looking but only 1 purchase... a Willie Stargell signed baseball.

Saturday

One more auto today (Polamalu). Had thought about grading some cards with PSA but didn't want to deal with it, so decided to try CGC (I really like their slabs). Good experience with CGC, dropped off 35 cards for grading. Solid customer service. Also dropped off a few items with Beckett for auto authentication (4 cuts for encapsulation which they'll mail back to me & a multi signed football which they finished at the show).

Got a wristband for Saturday's trade night. Only pulled off one small trade but sold quite a few more cards. Good crowd, but the young kids would just run away when they saw my cards... nothing shiny enough for them. It was definitely worth attending for me.

Sunday

Checked out of hotel. Had to stop at show to pick up CGC and Beckett orders. One last look for any pickups. Bought a matching set of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus for Master Collection /20. They had the Tiger Woods to go with it but too rich for me. Also picked up a Mark Messier auto out of Premier.


Takeaways

VIP - worth it? Not sure. VIP gift bag kind of sucked. I feel like they good make the cards a little nice. Upper Deck has Gretzky, Woods, Jordan, Griffey Jr and McDavid... maybe put a little foil on them or something to make them look less cheap. They need to improve future parking situations. The real win was in cutting the auto lines. Also VIP lounge was cool as a place to just sit or make some trades even during show. Not sure I'd get the VIP pass again though.

Food at the show - I heard tales of a $48 pizza. Come on. Line some normal food trucks up outside and let people eat reasonably priced food and drink.

Breakers and corporate space - I understand the need for corporate booths, but maybe move the breakers downstairs and open more floor space for dealers.

Trade nights - definitely seem worth checking out.

Clevelanders/Ohioans - When did they get so sensitive? I've been making Mistake By The Lake jokes to my friends from Cleveland for many years and never saw one of them get sad about it. Jokes aside... I'd occassionally go the the Flats when I was younger, took a couple nephews to the Rock N Roll HOF a few years back, etc. Cleveland is okay.

Show was cool. Never get that many people and vendors together without some issues. Would like to see more dealers with varied inventory. But it was a good time.

[kingofsnake]

Very detailed and informative review - thanks, OP. Glad that you had a nice time.

[ThoseBackPages]

i love the Caitlin VIP card!