In what was becoming a theme of the trip, we got a late start on Thursday. We had a great breakfast at The Root in downtown Lakewood. My latte was amazing, and the breakfast sandwich was excellent as well. By the time I got to the IX Center, it was around 11:00 AM, but I really didn’t mind being a little late. After trying to see every booth in the entire show the previous night, I had a new plan for Thursday. I was planning to slow down, enjoy the show, and hopefully start to make some connections.
The new approach worked great. I took my time wandering the aisles and tried to make sure I hadn’t missed anything the day before. As it turned out, I had missed a lot. I stopped by the Love of the Game booth to chat with Jeff Prizner, a fellow Seattleite, and to finally meet Al Crisafulli in person. I had done a lot of business with Al over the last few years and it was great to meet him in person. Hidden right behind the Love of the Game booth was Dan McKee and his awe inspiring showcases. His booth was one of the highlights of the show in my opinion. He had rare cards from pretty much every pre-war set imaginable. I didn’t end up buying anything, but I considered a T206 Blank Back Mullaney, Lenox Camnitz, as well as a T205 Drum Mordecai Brown, and a 1916 Altoona Tribune back. We had some good banter while I was looking through his offerings, which was a lot of fun. After checking out Dan’s cards, I went over to the Sterling Auction booth to introduce myself to Lee Behrens. Lee runs one of my favorite auction houses, and I wanted to make sure to meet him before the show was over.
After doing a little socializing, I got back to wandering the aisles, looking for cards to buy. On that front, Thursday went about as good as Wednesday had. I found a tough Vic Willis Portrait with Old Mill back at a table that had a lot of T206s, but only a couple tougher backs. It wasn’t a bargain by any means, but I wasn’t expecting to find too many bargains at this show. I also circled back to a booth I had visited on Wednesday to buy a couple American Beauty backs. This particular table was a highlight of the show for a few of the T206 back collectors I talked to. They had around 50 freshly graded American Beauty backs. The standouts among them were a couple Abbaticchio AB 460s, and a Heinie Wagner AB 460. I ended up coming away with a Donie Bush PSA 2 that is perfectly centered and looks a lot nicer than a “2”.
A little bit later I found Richard Masson and Scott Brockelman’s booth. In terms of non-Auction House eye candy, these guys took the cake. Scott had an incredible SGC 50 Jeff Sweeney Broad Leaf 460 and a Lenox Walter Johnson SGC 40, among many other impressive cards. Richard had a PSA 3 T206 Plank, and stacks of e107s. While I was standing there trying not to drool on the showcase, I heard a couple people talking about a T214 Victory Cobb, which caught my attention. I thought, I recognized one of the guys from a picture I had seen online years ago, and decided to take the chance and see if I was right. I went over to him and said, “Hey, are you Jamie?” It was Jamie Blundell! Jamie and I have worked together on a couple articles about his collection for this site, and conversed over email many times over the years, but had never met in person. I wasn’t even done feeling relieved that I hadn’t walked up to a random person and embarrassed myself when he said, “Do you want to see the Cobbs that you wrote about?” Heck yeah, I did! This was probably the highlight of the show for me. It’s definitely not every day that you get to thumb through a Red Hindu Cobb, Drum Cobb, Broad Leaf 460 Cobb, and a Ty Cobb back!
If you haven’t read it already, now would be a good time to check out the article featuring Jamie’s Ty Cobb Red Background Portrait back run:
The Greatest T206 Back Run Ever Assembled: Ty Cobb Red Background Portrait
Jamie’s collection is incredible, and it was a ton of fun to look through it in person. In addition to his Cobb back run, he also brought a few of his Printer’s Scraps. I got to see his Lake/Pastorius front mis-cut, in addition to his Merritt with Sam Crawford ghost. Last but not least, I got to look at one of my favorite T206s in existence, the “Rosetta Stone”. There is so much going on with that card, that seeing it person really gives you an even greater appreciation for how cool it is. I’ve also written an article about the “Rosetta Stone”, which can be read by clicking the link below:
The “Rosetta Stone” T206 Printer’s Scrap
Later that evening, I headed over to the hotel bar at Sheraton, where I met a bunch of collectors, some of whom I knew (or knew of) from net54 or elsewhere, and some others I didn’t know at all previously. This was a blast, and definitely a highlight of the trip for me. I didn’t stay too long, as I wanted to try and get up a decent hour the next morning, as that would be final day at the National this year.
