It was nice to finally meet Rob after so many e-mails and deals over the years. I ran a little short on time in the afternoon, but hopefully I will have more time for some trading & talking at the tables next time. Greg, Matt, Ernie, Tom & Marc were very friendly, and made it a pleasant afternoon, with a special thank you to Dave (Paul Maul) for checking out my unopened pack collection with his expert eye. It was mostly good news, so I was happy about that.
It was great meeting you too. I loved the lesson we were getting from the grand master of packs, Paul Maul, on how to spot fakes. It is very disconcerting that there are so many fake packs, even common ones. Between getting that lesson, getting my missing COA for my Stench Berries Sketch(that is now owned by Campy), selling off all of the non-wacky stuff I got with the punched diecuts collection that was for sale here recently, picking up a 1982 cereal pack and finding a rare 11th yellow wrapper in Roxanne's stash that i needed that she gave me for free for my helping her all these years and getting the 1982 OPC pack/wrapper I needed from Paul Maul, it was really a good day!
I do worry about the future of the show, the number of dealers is falling fast and there were very few dealers with good wackys. I got word circulating with the dealers that they should use the extra space to set up trading tables INSIDE the show. Keeping people in the room may spike sales, maybe encourage folks to stay longer and would give us a larger area to trade instead of having to "rent" the cafe tables for the afternoon.
