EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a weekly column from former sports reporter and editor Mike Bass. Bass will be contributing to The Enquirer by offering advice for sports fans, athletes and youth sports parents and coaches through a weekly Q&A. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter @SportsFanCoach1.
ROSEMONT, Illinois — This is how volatile the sports trading card business game can be. It is Saturday at the National Sports Collectors Card Convention, and look what just happened in baseball.
The value of Joey Votto baseball cards are rising a bit, says someone who should know, thanks to the Red’s home run streak that reached seven games Friday night. The value of Fernando Tatis Jr. cards took a slight dip after the Padres star hurt his shoulder that same night.
And that is nothing compared to what happened Thursday when the Cubs’ launched into full fire-sale mode, at least for one collector, according to Beckett Media social media manager Eric Norton.
“I know an Anthony Rizzo collector who has spent a good $100,000 on Anthony Rizzo cards, and it’s garbage now because it’s Cubs stuff and not Yankees stuff.” Norton says. “The term ‘garbage’ is a loose term because it’s not actually ‘garbage.’ But he’s never going to get back what he put into it.”
Ballpark of what the collection is worth now?
“Maybe 30, 35 (thousand),” Norton says.
“It was a bad day for him.”
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YOU MISSED THIS
Welcome to what is affectionately called The National, a five-day extravaganza of sports memorabilia and merchandise for those buying, selling, grading, consigning, autographing, podcasting, collecting or just admiring the view. And what a view it is.
For a sports fan, this is where history meets opportunity, spread out over 450,000 square feet in suburban Chicago’s Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. According to communications director Ray Schulte, no attendance will be posted, but this one ranks second only to the 1991 National in Anaheim, California, that attracted about 100,000. Oh, and 46.4 percent of online ticket buyers who responded said this is their first National.
This one is for you.
The pandemic canceled last year’s National and your seat to the games, sending you searching your closets and basements for your old cards and a sports jones, and your kids joined the hobby, too. The death of Kobe Bryan, the airing of Michael Jordan’s “The Last Dance” and the emergence of Ja’ Morant and Zion Williamson caused a surge in basketball cards. And it is hard finding baseball cards outside of hobby stores, websites … and here.
This is big because you made this big. People of all ages are here, many carrying backpacks and roller bags, suitcases and notebooks. And cash. Credit cards. Apps. You name it, they might pay for it. Or haggle for it. Talking down the price is part of the deal. Sometimes.
WHAT’S AKILI SMITH WORTH?
There are so many tables, so many display cases, so many EVERYTHING, I am glad I am here for three days. Over here is Muhammad Ali’s robe. Over there is a multi-million-dollar Babe Ruth card. And in that area are YouTubers breaking open cases of cards for sale.
Sometimes, I find something fun in a bargain bin. Inside the first one I see is a clear-wrapped pack of 1999 Upper Deck jumbo-sized football cards for $5. Akili Smith is on the front. Twenty-two years ago, the Bengals could not pass on him. Today, I do. Lesson learned.
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WOULD YOU EAT THAT?
The man is putting a piece of gum from 1984 in his mouth. I am not kidding. It was from a pack of newly opened 1984 baseball cards.
He tries to chew this fossil. He covers his face. He has to spit out the gum. We would do the same in 1984, when the gum only TASTED 37 years old.
Meet Frank Fleming, aka “Frank the Tank,” a blogger and YouTuber from Barstool Sports who is appearing on the main stage and accepting the gum challenge. A Whatnot app representative introduces me to him afterward.
“It was there, why not?” Fleming says of the culinary exercise. “It’s not poisonous. It basically disintegrated. It was like eating chalk.”
PSA: KEEP CALM AND GRADE ON
The lines are long for PSA, maybe the best-known professional grading service. Demand is understandably high with the card market exploding. Because one point on the 10-point grading scale might means hundreds or thousands of dollars, there always is a chance customers can explode, too.
Which is why David Steinberger is doing what he does right now, calmly explaining something to a customer.
“We’re providing an opinion service,” the vice president for customer experience says later. “Sometimes that opinion isn’t necessarily the opinion they want to hear. So, sure, that will result sometimes in us having to do a little bit of handholding or explaining.”
More than halfway through the show, Steinberger reports no major incidents. The de-escalation efforts help. If not?
“We have six or seven security personnel here,” Steinberger says. “They’re keeping tabs on everything.”
A TASTE OF RED
Check out the sizable cardboard display of Joe Burrow among others showing Fanatics-sponsored athletes. This is especially notable because anything else Cincinnati you see shown off here tends to be of the retired legends.
Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Dave Parker are among those selling autographs, along with the likes of Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, Bill Walton and James Worthy, Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders — and Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler, now that college players can do this, too.
You can see a whole lot of former Reds among the portraits displayed by painter Brent Naughton. He is a Reds fan who lives in Cermont County, which explains his Reds shirt. As for his Bears hat? He favors Chicago’s NFL team instead of supporting Mike Brown’s.
“I love the Bengals,” Naughton says. “I just wish we had an owner that would love them as much as I do.”
This is his first National as a painter, and you can spend
$75 for trading-card-sized pieces or up to $2,225 for an 18-by-24 autographed Joe Montana portrait. You can commission him to paint someone else, even beyond sports, but portraits here include the likes of Hank Aaron to Justin Fields to Mia Hamm, for someone’s fan cave.
“The first day, people came in and they were just excited,” Naughton says. “One guy came in and screamed, ‘This is something different!’”
DEAR DAD: OPEN THESE
The real screaming you hear emanates from “Pack Wars” at the Topps area. Everyone here gets a pack of a few baseball cards, and a moderator works up the frenzied with contests related to those cards. Such as: “Who has the player with the highest weight?”
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Between the shrieks, Topps communication manager Emily Kless shares how much fun this has been for her, being out around people. Sometimes collectors will rip open packs in front of the Topps folks to share the moment. One collector found one of five Derek Jeter autographed Clearly Authentic cards.
Kless can appreciate that. She grew up as a Yankees fan, collecting cards and and sharing a hobby with her dad. These are the stories I love to hear, that connect us.
“He still has all his sets from ’63, ’64, ’65,” she says. “So it is really neat to be able to share that with him.”
And now that she works for Topps? He loves it.
“Sometimes Topps will give employees boxes as an end-of-year present or something like that,” she says. “I always save them to open them up with my dad. It’s something we totally bond over.”
THE MILLION-DOLLAR BROKER
Jesse Craig apologizes. He is losing his voice after talking for four straight days, since the announcement he had brokered the sale of a one-of-a-kind Patrick Mahomes rookie card for $4.3 million. It is a record for NFL cards.
“It’s great to break a record,” he says.
Again.
As director of business development at PWCC Marketplace, he brokered the sale of a $5.2 million Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card in January, a sports-card record. A few months later, Craig and PWCC brokered the sale of a LeBron James rookie basketball card for the same $5.2 million.
“So we’re used to doing this kind of thing — a little bit,” he says. “But it’s still fun.”
This is what happens when you find a job you love and satisfaction in bringing buyer and seller together. Craig joined PWCC in 2018, returning to the collectibles field he had left in 2014 to become a real-estate broker.
“It’s funny,” he says. “I’ve kind of had an epiphany. I’ve sold multiple cards for more money than I ever sold a house.”
The job is demanding, sure, coordinating with clients located across time zones and around the world. But he is having a “blast” working with athletes, celebrities, CEOs, those who came from wealth before collecting and those who came into it by collecting. He enjoys the back stories behind the collections, and some of the perks of the job.
“We do get to go do some fun things every once in a while with celebrities or athletes,” Craig says.
Such as?
“Going to a concert backstage and having beers with one of the Billboard artists of the year,” Craig says, while protecting the name of the singer-collector.
Craig does not collect sports cards now, calling it a conflict of interest, but he can veer a bit for his twin 5-year-old sons and 7 year-old daughter.
“We collect Fortnight cards together,” he says. They love opening packs of Fortnight cards. I will come back from this trip with a box of Fortnight cards for them to open.”
He is 37 now. How do you top this?
“That’s a great question,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t think I need to.”
Readers: Next week, I will fill you in on some advice from experts that you can use for your own collecting.
Remember to email Bass at [email protected] or reach out to him @SportsFanCoach1 on Twitter if you want to be included next week. His website is MikeBassCoaching.com.
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