My National Experience

I attended the National Card Show at the Baltimore Convention Center on Saturday and pretty much spent the entire day at the show. I easily could have spent at least another half day at the show, but I had other things to do since I recently got back from my trip. I was able to cover the entire show, but not as well as I would have liked. I also ran into fellow Orioles collector and blogger Ryan, and got a preview of his haul from the show.

For someone like myself who has such a limited collection focus, I knew going in that it would be pretty unlikely for me to find any autographs I need for my Orioles collection, but a show like this at least gave me some hope. I went in to the show with the realistic goal of knocking out the three recently-debuted Orioles that I needed; Jim Thome, Omar Quintanilla, and Lew Ford.

After looking through a few certified autograph boxes in search of the trio, I came across an in-person autograph dealer about halfway through the show. Visually, his autographs meshed well with other examples I have seen of the autographs I needed, so I pulled the trigger. It also helped that he happened to have all three of the players I needed.

Of course, as I mentioned in Monday's post, I later came across this signed Ford Tides card at one of the last booths I stopped at, so that Twins card is now available for trade.

In addition to those three guys, I came across this autograph of short-time Orioles infielder Eider Torres. The price was next to nothing and I like it much better than the autograph that was in my collection, so I made the upgrade.

So this SP certified autograph of Torres is now up for trade. 

I also found a large number of cards that I needed for my various Topps, Topps Heritage, and subset collections, but I was unable to scratch off any of the other Orioles autographs needs on my list. While I wasn't really surprised, I was still somewhat disappointed. I guess my collection is at the point where, even at a show the size of the National, no one has what I'm looking for. However, one of the dealers mentioned that he had sold a signed 1964 Lou Jackson Orioles on Thursday, so I guess that I know there is at least one out there!