The first full day of the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago brought out good sized crowds spread throughout the convention center floor. The biggest buzz on the show floor was the news the Leaf signed a deal with Ichiro to appear on autographs in the company’s upcoming baseball releases. Also a dealer was led out in cuffs after being caught apparently selling jerseys he was falsely claiming to be game worn. Modern single cards, especially those from Bowman rookie and prospect products were selling very well. Most bargin boxes were elbow to elbow with collectors jostling for position to find a bargain. As was the case with vintage discount boxes. Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, and Jurikson Profar seemed to be among the most heavily sold rookies at the show. I went to the Topps Q&A forum which allowed collectors to ask any questions of the Topps brass represented. Nothing really earth shattering came out of the 90 minute session. The biggest issue Topps seems to be focused on correcting is making a more information based website, as well as making sure the websites for collectors to enter promotional codes are actually functional upon the products release rather than days or weeks later. Additionally they addressed redemptions and the hope to make a more collector friendly method to deal with redemption replacements. The autograph lines were fairly short, as was the talent signing. The big guns begin coming out on Friday. The vast majority of the modern dealers I talked to were very happy. As an indication of how well modern product was selling, I offer you the pictures below. We featured ROC Sports Cards case of Bryce Harper cards and autographs that was completely full when we saw them Wednesday afternoon. As of Thursday afternoon only about 20 remained.
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