Tag Archives: Jim Taylor

Day 4 Review: National Sports Collectors Convention In Chicago

The second to last day at the National Sports Collectors Convention featured the biggest crowds of the week at the Autograph Pavilion which had some of its bigger names of the week. Cal Ripken had a huge line in the afternoon. Tristar’s TNA Wrestling autograph and photo opp promotion with Ric Flair among others was hugely popular. The Flair photo line was insanely long. Rafael Palmeiro had a decent number of people in his autograph line, but drew only two or three photo opps. He looked significantly smaller than in his playing days. Jim Taylor in what was billed as a “rare public autograph appearance” was pretty ornery refusing to sign a few items, most of which were already signed by Paul Hornung. He also put just “Jim” on collector’s trading card and finally put “Taylor” on it after being pressed to do so. It was all and all pretty bizarre. Darryl Strawberry drew a nice crowd. The buzz on the floor involved Leaf giving away a Joe Jackson cut signature to the grand prize winner of its Sports Icons contest. The estimated $80,000 card was won by a Tennessee collector. Also was word of a number of high dollar items having been stolen from various dealers over the weekend. I heard talk among a number of dealers that they would not be back on Sunday. Very few deals left in the bargain bins from dealers selling modern cards, and many of the wax wholesalers were marking down their prices a bit. I saw one deep pocketed fellow cracking multiple cases of Panini National Treasures and Upper Deck All Time Greats basketball. Saw at least two Jordan hits out of the all time greats among his break. Must be nice to have insane amounts of money.