Posted By Cliff Aliperti on May 8, 2009
Wow, I wish these things came with a copyright date issued on them to really hammer home my point, but I came across this old business card the other day and realized that it was from my first solo venture 18 years ago! Seeing it made me think that this space might be a good place to reminisce about some of those old-card show days because, after all, that what put all this e-commerce stuff in my blood to begin with.
Contact info cropped off, but my otherwise Plain Jane 1991-93 biz card
18 years ago I was 19 years old, and so if you’re one of my online friends kind enough to still think me young, well, I was a real baby then! I didn’t just jump right into this myself, if you’ve previously read anything about my background you’d know I started out assisting my Uncle, oh, bout 1983-84 I’d say, and soon graduated to my own few feet on one of his tables. I was lucky in that he got into the baseball card hobby the same year I started collecting as a kid, 1979, and so I was exposed to some really neat vintage items moving in and out of his inventory. My favorite family gatherings growing up were the ones at his house where I spent most of my day inside his baseball card room paging through albums of old cards and flipping through stacks box by box. I can still smell that cardboard!
But, again, let me remind you, I started doing this card show gig on my own when I was 19 and managed to keep myself afloat through age 21 when it all ended on my front stoop with my head in my hands and the realization that I just couldn’t make it work any longer. Looking back now at how incredibly irresponsible I was I laugh thinking it ever had a chance, I think I did pretty well just to keep at it that long.
Prime example of youthful folly — after promising one of my pals I’d take him out drinking later that night if he helped me work a show, he agreed and then we went on to make not one damn sale that night. Desperate for drinking money I flipped a Mickey Mantle card to another dealer I knew at cost. Well, maybe a bad example, because we raised so much hell that night that I remember most of those details too, but you’re not getting that out of me…
I used to do shows Saturday and Sunday, if I recall they’d run about 10am-5pm, and also on Tuesday and Thursday nights. When there was a good show I’d be at the same location both weekend days, and for the best ones there’d be a Friday night preview as well. Typical table fees back then were in the $50-$60 per day range for the run-of-the-mill shows, with weekend fees for the better two day shows at about $140-$150, and the really big 3 day events running around $300.
Think about that eBayers–I’d pay $300 to pack up all my goods, every bit of it I wanted to have a chance to sell, transport it to some location, spend about an hour setting it up, sit behind the table for 8-10 hours making small talk and sales talk, and have no guarantee of making a dime. Then I’d have to break it all down and bring it home Sunday evening. 3 days, $300. Oh, I usually went for two tables too, so double that fee. And you don’t like your eBay bill–trust me, mine is always a bargain.
I did shows the shows all over Long Island, which were usually limited to the Hotels off the Long Island Expressway exits, plus some of the real winners tucked away in dark Knights of Columbus halls around the Island. There was one pretty decent one I did at a Church (I think it was a Church) in Brooklyn, which was a little off the beaten path, but hey, it paid. The better ones were 2 and 3 day events at Hofstra University and especially the Nassau Coliseum, and the best of the best for me were the Rothstein shows held a few times a year just north of NYC in White Plains, NY.
Assisting me were my father, who took the opportunity to put together a set of ‘59 Topps baseball cards and then a really friggin’ sharp set of ‘56 Topps that I wish he still had so I could pry them away from him to get graded (PSA was kind of new at the tail-end of my card show days). Then I had a friend my age who worked for free in order to sell his stuff–at first I took a small cut, then I took his labor. We weren’t really partners, but it was close enough to lead me to discover that I’d much prefer employees to partners in the future. That’s probably not fair, as we had a lot of fun, but it’s no fun paying all the bills and having someone else get all the sales, you know? I had some other friends who filled in from time to time too, thankfully always for free, as they were (morbidly) curious about the whole lifestyle.
As you might imagine with those Hotel and KofC shows both the cast of dealers and customers were pretty much the same. Same faces every week. Setting up with the same people, selling stuff to the same people. Swapping vintage for new with some dealers, new for vintage with others, and hoping we mixed up our stock enough that the same old customers would have interest rekindled next weekend.
By the early 90’s there was a lot of mail order going on, especially through SCD (Sports Collectors’ Digest) and then there were the bigger sales from the major auction houses, but for those who just saw us same old dealers show after show (hey, it’s that guy AGAIN!), bless em, sometimes they really had to work to give us business. Shoot, sometimes they’d start a new set just because one of the dealers had some singles available!
I preferred vintage even then, as it allowed me to offer something different than most of the other dealers who were all competing in price offering the same new sets, singles, and wax boxes week to week. I did succumb to the lure of easy money through new releases every so often though, my most memorable being the 1992 Topps Brien Taylor rookie cards. Remember him? #1 can’t miss draft pick for the Yankees who missed about as big as you can miss? Well, I had a few sources for his cards and selling them was like printing money for a few months.
So I really looked forward to the bigger shows, both for buying and selling. New dealers, new customers, and usually that meant both had a few bucks behind them. Out of towners were preferred from both sides of the table.
Bringing it back to eBay, re-read that last paragraph and you’ll see why I love selling online in general. Taking it a little further, that paragraph really tells you why you should be selling internationally if you can. No matter your pool of customers, you need to keep finding ways to grow it. Repeat business is great, and I still love having customers come back to me week to week to fill their collections, but new customers (and new collectors) are key to continuing success.
Last memory for now, and really the one which makes me laugh the most in retrospect–Big 3-day Nassau Coliseum show, 200-300 tables, something like that. I go in, get my credentials, locate my tables, which are pretty much right in the middle of the arena. You were allowed to drive into the Coliseum to unload prior to setting up, otherwise you’d have to make multiple trips hauling your goods across the parking lot, down elevators, etc. Anyway, my partner drove in, we unloaded, all set. But when he went to leave his car wouldn’t start and there we were–among all these dealers from all over the country, all scrambling to get ready for business–and us with the engine cranking and exhaust filling the arena! Eventually he got it out of there, but man, talk about youth fostering some low expectations. We weren’t very popular that weekend.
That was fun to write up, so I may do some more of these in the future. If you want to see more feel free to let me know below. Thanks!
Category: The Old Days |
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Tags: 1990s baseball card shows, baseball card dealer, baseball card shows, ebay, ecommerce, Long Island card shows, vendor
Snellville, Ga., April 27, 2009 – John Lawson, Founder and CEO of the online urban clothing store, 
