Card Show Annex Content
some extra pics and vibes from the national card show
Available to read today on SBNation, a lengthy article about my trip to The National Sports Card Convention back in July. Please, check it out, I’m pretty proud of it. Below is an annex to the article, featuring stuff (in the most literal sense of the term) that I couldn’t get to in the entirely too many words I dumped onto the topic in my piece.
This is a signed photo of Trump getting shot, on auction mere weeks after a bullet grazed his ear. I asked Jeff Holt, the president of Iconic Auctions (One of the most interesting people I spoke to, his insights on collector mindset and the investment qualities of memorabilia dot the landscape of my piece), how he managed to be in a position to auction this thing: “Consigner called me and said ‘I got a signed photo of Trump from the assaination attempt, can I get it to you, can we get it authenticated, I ran it by the authenticators, they said we’re good. It’s a guy who’s an in person guy who I’ve known for years. The thing about Trump is he loves himself and he loves to embrace the moment.”
Holt tells me about the consignor. “He’s a guy who has a bevy of in person autograph guys all across the country working for him. So one of these guys got the signature on there…”
“Some of these guys follow Trump around?”
“Oh yeah. They follow everybody, all across the country. Especially guys who are on the campaign trail, a guy like Trump who’s willing to sign, he’s paper. He’s a five hundred dollar autograph right now, minimum.”
“What!? But he signs stuff all the time!”
“But he’s a former president of the United States, and he has… a following, if you wanna call it. Now, before he became President of the United States, when he was running in 2016 against Hillary, he was a fifty to seventy-five dollar autograph because nobody thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell to win. Hillary was a five hundred dollar plus autograph, November Sixth, 2016, Hillary became a fifty dollar autograph, Trump became a five hundred dollar autograph. If a person becomes President of the United States, they’re forever president. No matter how good, bad, whatever you are, you’re always President.”
Political stuff comprised the third largest set of stuff at the show, behind sports and Pokemon stuff. I will confess I was tempted to buy a Lyndon Johnson poster, but I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it.
The ways perception affects these prices is so weird. Here is FDR, one of our great presidents, drawing five bucks for a top loader card…
While Zachary Taylor, somewhat less notable, goes for three. Win World War Two, End the Depression, overcome the ravages of polio, that’s two dollars over replacement level right there.
Some things I really do not, can never understand. Will anyone REALLY pay three hundred bucks for a 9.5 graded unsigned Jackie Moon card? I guess? Who has three hundred dollars, loves Semi-Pro, and also is like 6/10 drunk and finds spending money on something amusing, I guess?
The biggest thing in cards this year is Caitlin Clark. This is pretty in line with the way these markets work. Clark is seen, by many, maybe too many people, as the single person who will break the WNBA out of its niche and step into the spotlight as their first mega ultra crossover star, the league’s Ty Cobb or Wilt Chamberlain or what have you, a perception that has only grown after her ROY season. This exact card, unsigned but graded, is selling for 1,500 bucks on ebay right now. The market is driven by the vision of a future where owning this will be like owning Babe’s rookie card, a piece of the biggest action that ever came down the pipe, the big bang that preceded universal WNBA dominance. Will this happen, will Clark and the league and everything validate this hype? Who fucking knows. Markets aren’t really about solid, rational analysis, though, they’re about the juice, and Clark, at the moment, has the juice.
This is one of several hundred signed, graded, Pete Rose Brand Pete Rose Cards, signed by Pete Rose. As you can imagine, there was a lot of Pete stuff everywhere, on account of his second life as a Michael Jordan in Swackhammer’s fantasy.
I saw Pete signing at the big autograph booths in the back of the convention center. I also might have uhh gawked a little and took pictures of him like he was a zoo animal. At one point he made eye contact with me. I didn’t care for that moment of self awareness, but content has its demands. Watching him do it, you saw a man who was weirdly expert in the matter. Quick sign, handshake, a little wobble of the card to dry the ink. It would be his last National, of course, so now photos of Pete not long before his death are haunting my Lightroom account.
There was a lot to cover and only so much time, so I couldn’t really get into the autograph row stuff, but it’s quite a scene. Michael Irvin, seen here hugging a guy, really leapt out at me: fully engaged, very physical, clearly going out of his way to give the people at his table a sense of connection in their time at his table. I tried to speak with him but his team wasn’t into it. Story for another day, perhaps.
George Brett looked like Mac DeMarco in his prime.
Kareem doesn’t sign much, because he is too self aware to enjoy people making a fuss over him and his career. I was pretty immune to stuff at the time (I’ve come, in thinking and writing about it, to appreciate the impulse of certain kinds of collecting a little more: also I started collecting Pokemon cards? Idk man life’s a little out of control r/n.) but I’ll confess to getting geeked over the Kareem stuff. Something about imaging him rolling his eyes and signing an LA Gear poster just makes his stuff radiate humanity, you know?
Currently looking into acquiring a set of these and eating off them exclusively.
The most aura drenched object at the show, possibly the most aura drenched object in the history of sports, was this jersey, the one that Babe Ruth wore when he called his shot back in the 1931 World Series. Like you, I also called bullshit on this at first, but Ryan Hogue, the CEO of PSA, the verification company who did the authentication on the jersey, told me how they did it and pretty much convinced me. “That was the first jersey we photo matched,” he told me. “There were photos the day after the home run, in the newspaper. There are some distinct markings on the jersey; a tobacco stain in a certain spot, spacing with the ‘Y’ relative to the buttons. I think we matched four or five points.”
PSA and the other graders who work in this space like Beckett, CGC, SGC and others, were, I think, the most interesting organizations I encountered all weekend. I might have given too much space in my piece to describing the grading process, the manner by which a slip of cardboard becomes a VERIFIED ARTIFACT, but I really think this process stands at the center of the bozo money that keeps this hobby juicy. You know the old adage about how the people who made the most money during the gold rush were guys selling pickaxes? Yeah, that.
Mick, also everywhere. The old joke about Mickey was that they “Buried him with his hand out of the ground so he could keep signing.”
I got pretty into the autographed picture booths, even got a few for friends of mine. Connor didn’t appreciate the signed photo of Jerry Reinsdorf I got him enough.
Youths dealing in the basement. Grind, hustle.
Like thirty of the same Jamal Murray card. Honestly flipping through the big fucking boxes makes you go slowly insane. I have come to enjoy it, though.
Alright, that’s all. Read the article if you haven’t already and have a wonderful day.