07/30/2024
Our weekend at the National has come and gone, but what an EXPERIENCE.
I am personally thankful that with attending my first national we scheduled ourselves at least two days as it could have easily been overwhelming.
My biggest takeaway is that the hobby is strong and growing in not just your normal football, baseball, and basketball selection but all of the major sports around the world. Non-sport is continuing to grow with the Star Wars, One Piece, Disney (Topps Chrome and Lorcana) with Pokémon still be as popular as ever.
Breaking is continuing to grow and was a major factor at the National. WhatNot had a very large presence with people breaking constantly. You’ll see in the pictures that it looked like you were in a casino in Vegas with the mega stream broadcasting every minute the venue was open.
Mystery Packs and Repackers are probably the second most noticeable and growing part of the hobby besides the breaking arena. This part of the hobby is growing at a very high and fast rate as prices continue to go up on many of our favorite cards it get the average spender a chance at a mega pull just like opening your own box. I am excited to see where this goes in the future.
Now about the Cards.. What you see at the National is second to none.
We were able to see the six new PSA 10/Auto 10 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan Rookies, multiple Mantle,Ruth, Gehrig cards that were constantly in the 6 to low 7 figures. The ultra modern selection of football was unreal with the chase of Downtowns and Kabooms from all collectors even 10 year olds.
My favorite part of the trip was the Trade Night Friday night as it was less attended but the people made it so wholesome and made many sweet deals. I cannot say enough great things about the people I came across last week and excited to experience again in the future.
Lastly, we have to share what we picked up. I would say I am slight disappointed with the amount of cards we came home with as we came home with more funds than we took after liquidating some cards and even purchasing a couple hobby boxes for wrapper redemption and mystery boxes form Blowout Cards. I have my pick-ups below and don’t have any pictures of all the great value box deals we did. I did make the mistake of not buying a few cards I would have loved to own as I wanted to see the entire show floor and by the time I went back both cards I truly wanted were no longer there. That’s my biggest lesson make the deal on the card before you leave the table because if you like it then there is 100% chance someone else does as well.
