Are "Trade Nights" good for the National? Hobby Quick Hits E210

Trade Nights keep the transactions flowing after the show doors close, it extends the show in a sense but what do dealers think about it and is it good.  We delve into these aspects and more in this episode.


Also:

*New Product Release Schedule

*Hobby News



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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hobby Got Quick Hits, delivering that breaking Hobby Newman direct loads.
You want to know those Josh Card chat chaff, You've
got your core.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Host John new Name.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hello, everyone, welcome to episode to ten of Hobby Quick Hits.
My name is John Newman. Today's topic, you know, setting
up at the National and Trade Night. I know the
trade nights are a huge success, most people love them,
but how about dealers? And as a dealer. Now, obviously,

(00:50):
as you probably know, I don't set up at the National,
but as a dealer, you know what if I did,
you know, what would my feelings to Trade night B
And I did speak to some and you know, I'm
not gonna mention names. I told them I wouldn't mention names.
They told me they give me their opinion if I

(01:11):
didn't mention names. And you know the reason for that
is obviously they don't want to be negative and if
they said something negative, maybe the National doesn't let them
get their table space back. So I agreed to, like,
you know, keep their identities unknown so I could get
their honest opinion. And you know, to the six to

(01:35):
eight dealers I spoke to that, I know it was
kind of split down the middle, and then I'll kind
of interject my thoughts as well. We're gonna get to
the Hobby release schedule. We're not gonna do a new
segment on this episode to keep this episode pretty short,
and Sweet's not gonna shouldn't be a long one. So

(01:57):
let's get to the Hobby product relief schedule and then
we'll tackle this topic. All right, Let's talk about the
releases coming out in the next few weeks. On the
twentieth of August, Foundation Seasons one and two from Rittenhouse,
same day, twenty twenty five, Leaf Glory in the Game

(02:17):
Football twenty twenty five, Panini Boys of Summer Baseball twentieth
Still the Boys Season one and two Star Wars Tops Chrome,
including the Breakers Delight Edition. The following day, eight twenty one,
we have twenty twenty four Panini Immaculate Football twenty twenty five,

(02:40):
Leaf Eclectic Pro Bowling Association Hobby in Jumbos. On the
twenty second, twenty twenty five, Panini Prism Live Golf twenty
twenty five, Leaf Major League Table Tennis Premiere Edition, Leaf
Metal twenty twenty five, Authentics Pokemon twenty twenty five Holliday

(03:04):
Calendar Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Black Boat Booster Bundle, Pokemon
Scarlet and Violet White Flare Booster Bundle, take a few
days off and move to the twenty seventh, twenty twenty
five Panini Origins Football twenty twenty five, Panini Prism FIFA

(03:26):
Club World Cup Soccer twenty twenty five, Panini Select Racing
same day on the twenty seventh, twenty twenty five Pulse
Meridian Baseball including the heat Seekers Audition twenty twenty five
tops Chrome Baseball Sapphire. Also on the twenty seventh, twenty

(03:47):
twenty four to twenty five Upper Deck Clearcut Hockey, James
Bond Double seven, No Time to Die from Upper Deck,
going to the twenty eighth twenty twenty five Pieces of
Past seventeen seventy six, The Freedom Fighters Veterans Edition, the
twenty ninth, twenty twenty five Leaf Opta Chrome Football Hobby

(04:09):
and Jumbos Skybox Metal Universe Batman from Upper Deck twenty
twenty four to twenty five, Pannini Donerus Optic Choice Basketball
twenty twenty five, Pannini and Peckaboat Baseball twenty twenty four
twenty five Pannini Silhouette Baseball twenty twenty four, twenty five

(04:34):
Tops or twenty twenty five Tops, chrumb WWE Cactus Jack
Edition Tops twenty four Garbage Camp, Garbage Pale Kids Battle
the Band's Green Day, and we'll cover the September fourth,

(04:54):
twenty twenty four Pannini won Football. As I always say,
choose your happy ripping.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Hi, this is Pat Hughes, Cubs announcer, coming to you
from the Sports Card Shop in beautiful New Buffalo, Michigan.
The Gocher family has built an incredible place here for
collectors to buy, sell, and trade cards and memorabilia. Be
sure to stop buy and let them show you around
the Sportscardshop dot com, connecting sports athletes, the hobby and

(05:28):
collectors around the world.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Hi, this is Alan Pinkett and I'm here to tell
you the Gocher family has done it again. They've just
opened up the Sport Card Shop in downtown Valparaiso, Indiana,
and it is awesome. If you're a collector, you need
to check this place out. Tell them Alan sent you

(05:51):
and get a free gift on your first visit. And
now it's our feature presentation.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Before we delve into this topic. Let me do some
house cleaning and put some stuff out front here. I'm
generally not a trade night guy, although I will tell
you at this year's National, I did go to the
Vintage Trade Night for a little bit before I had
a dinner to attend, and then there was another night.
I did briefly attend the trade night, but generally they

(06:24):
are not my bag, especially when they occur after a
show has already taken place. Here's why. Just so you
don't think I'm just a curmudgeon or a grumpy guss,
although that may not be untrue. But I kid you know.
You spend six eight hours in the show, whether that's
behind the table as a dealer, even as a consumer,

(06:46):
in front of the table, walking the floor. For me,
and I'm passionate about the hobby. I love the hobby.
I love collecting cars, I love selling cars. I love
all the aspects of the hobby. But after six eight
ten hours of cards, folks, I'm sort of done. I'm
looking for especially when we talk about the National, I'm

(07:06):
sort of looking forward to the dinners and gets togethers.
And while we may talk about cards or things we
picked up during the day, it's in a different kind
of setting, right, usually a restaurant or a bar, a
little more relaxing. We can kind of chill out, sit down,
share a meal, share some drinks, talk about not only

(07:28):
cards but life as well, and that sort of thing. Right,
So that is, you know, sort of my take on
trade nights. I'm not anti trade night, it's just not
my thing. But you know, when you're tend the National
for the whole week, you talk to a lot of
people on all aspects of a hobby, dealers, collectors, people

(07:51):
just selling their cards from table to table, the whole gamut.
And you know, I spoke to, you know, six to
eight friends of mine that told me, combined by adding
up what they told me, they spent cash not in
the show, but in trade nights. So I have eight
people I know who when I told me what they
spent not on the show for itself, but after the

(08:13):
show was closed in trade nights, and just the eight
people I spoke to, it was over fifty thousand dollars combined.
And that's a decent amount of cash, right, And obviously
there's probably millions going down in the show itself, and
so you know, keep that in perspective. But I really
thought about it, right, And that's just you know, eight

(08:36):
people I spoke to. That means it's more transaction than
that people I don't know and didn't speak to, right,
And there's probably millions of dollars exchanging hands on the
Trade Night floor as well after the show. And it
got me to thinking, I've never set up at a
national I'm a dealer who sets up at other shows,

(08:56):
you know, what's my feelings about that? And I you know,
I'm not greedy, but I'm entrepreneurial, right, And I'm thinking
to myself these trade nights, right, everyone's just throwing their
cards out on a round table. They're on the floor,
sitting Indian style with all their prize possessions or available

(09:17):
cards placed in front of them. And some are trade
deals where there's no cash and well, and other times
it's just a buy and sell. Right, It's a lot
of different transactions going on. And as a dealer, you know,
knowing that now, as a dealer, could I still attend
Trade Night myself and bring some of my stuff to

(09:40):
Trade Night? Sure? So the opportunity is there for that.
But I thought, what if I'm a dealer and I
don't set up at trade night, and all this other
money is exchanging hands. And the folks that are at
the trade night, they're not paying any kind of table expense. Sure,
they're paying the expense to get to in this case
Chicago and their hotels. They're staying at a hotel, and

(10:01):
their travel expenses, and they're lodging and food and Uber
and you know everything that's entail. But they're not paying
the setup fees to set up, you know, inside the
National itself. And obviously more people are attending the National
to show itself than the trade nights. But I tell
you the truth. I you know, I can't drive to Chicago,

(10:24):
But if I did, you know, I think I've changed
my I think next, if I ever the next National,
I drive to whatever that might be. I might bring
some stuff and just set up a table at a
trade night and make some money without paying that National
you know card show fee, that table fee, right, And

(10:47):
the last I knew, and I don't know what the
current regime is. I think it was like something like
and I could be under I could be low here
between twelve hundred and eighteen hundred for a table at
the Nashville I believe eight feet that could be wrong.
If you don't bring your showcases, right, you have to
write your showcases. I believe those are seventy five dollars

(11:08):
a case. Again, these are approximate estimates based on either
information I've had prior or talking the people. Right, So
it's four figures for sure, right, And that number again
might be higher than I'm even saying. And so if
I can just set up shop at a trade night
and make thousands of dollars without paying thousands of dollars

(11:32):
like I don't blame the people at trade night. It's
not their fault. They're just taking advantage of the opportunity
presented to them. It's smart. It's smart on their part.
But if I'm a dealer at the show, that kind
of bothers me a little bit, because you know, you
can hate me for saying this, but here you got here.
I'm paying to set up the privilege and honor to

(11:55):
set up and sell my cards and items, and then
someone after hours can set up in pretty much the
same building in a different room and sell their stuff
with no overhead like I have. They don't even need showcases, right,
They're putting these cards right out on the table. Some
people might have brought their own cases, but generally the

(12:17):
higher percentages they're just putting the cards on the table. Now,
obviously they're at greater risk for something to be taken
or stolen and that sort of thing. But it's a
great opportunity, knows, folks, and they're taking advantage of it
right to make some cash. And is that cash going
back into the hobby most likely in fright. Frankly, that's
none of my business whether it does or it doesn't.

(12:39):
But if I'm a dealer, that sort of would bother me, because,
right everyone has a budget of some sort. Some are
higher than others. Your budget might be under a thousand bucks.
Your budget might be between one and ten thousand, like
mine is. Your budget might be ten thousand to twenty thousand.
Your budget might be six figures if you're, you know,

(13:01):
financially in a really really good spot. So everyone's budgets different,
but everyone has a budget a cap at some point
that they really can't go past. And when those moneies
are exchanging hands on a trade night floor, that budget
most likely goes down for many, may go up for

(13:21):
some that are making the sales, but that's money that
could have been spent during show hours. And so as
a dealer, is it a deal breaker for me? Would
I like not set up at the National if I
was setting up at the National? No, And I don't think.
And the dealers I spoke to in full disclosure, no one,
even the ones that sort of didn't like the premise

(13:42):
of trade Night, none of them said that it would
be a reason they wouldn't set up at the National. Gain.
They may not like it, but that doesn't mean they
wouldn't set up at the National again. And a good
percentage of the ones I spoke to were not first
time vendors. These are people who've been there multiple times
or there every year. And so for me, speaking for

(14:05):
myself as someone who's a dealer but not a national dealer,
it would kind of bug me a little bit that,
you know, we're sort of paying their twos during the
day and at night. It's sort of you know, the
wild Wall West and free enterprise. And like I said,
I've even thought about, like, if the next Nationale I
can drive to and bring more stuff with me, I

(14:27):
might just put my stuff out there and generate hopefully
some cash flow and spend more money at the Nationale
and yes, there is a positive too, right, it's not
all negative side.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
If you make some money on trade night, again, like
I said already, you're probably apt to spend more on
the show floor the following days for more cards. But
you know, not all that money goes back onto the
show floor, and so dealers are sort of losing out
probably a small piece of that pie, but it is

(15:00):
a piece of that pie. So again I spoke to
some dealers that I know got their honest to take,
honest assessment and takes promised I would not disclose their
names or business names, and I'm not going to. And
even the ones dad said positive stuff that didn't say,

(15:22):
like you don't have you can share my name. I'm
not going to just be fair across the board. So
some of the positive comments from dealers who set up
in the National, you know, their take was, hey, maybe
it brings more people to the National. If there weren't
trade Knights, maybe some people wouldn't come in to the
show at all. Now I don't know what, you know,

(15:44):
how true or what percentage that would be, but I'm
sure there is some truth to that. Another gentleman told me,
like the trade Knights don't really bother him because he
does fairly well and he doesn't think it really affects
him too much. Another gentleman and told me that he
thinks trade nights are good. It just keeps the transactions going,

(16:06):
It keeps people in a great mood. And he thinks
he's a vintage dealer, and he thinks two things. He
thinks that a lot of the trade night stuff is
on modern and ultra modern, so it really doesn't affect
him too much directly as he doesn't carry that stuff.
And he thinks even when there is vintage at a
trade night, it does expose some of those the younger set,

(16:30):
if he will, is how he worded it, maybe to
consider adding vintage to what they collect and transact in.
So those were sort of the positive comments. Another person
told me, you know, they can't control it. They don't
worry about it that may you know, I get that
stance as well. Some of the you know, the negative

(16:50):
and it was probably sixty forty positive, but some of
the negative comments were kind of how I feel. Right,
It's like, in a sense, folks are getting sort of
free table space to make some money where they're paying
for their table space. On One person told me they'd
like to see it a little bit more organized, where

(17:11):
you have to pay, maybe not obviously what you pay
to set up at the National itself, but a small
fee to set up one. One gentleman even said, you know,
they should pay for a table. And even if the
National doesn't, you know, it sponsors it but doesn't keep
the money, use that money and give it to the
charities that they work with. Right, So let's say you

(17:35):
wanted to attend, you wanted to sell or trade at
the trade night, it'd be fifty bucks for a table,
and that fifty bucks would go to you know, whatever
charity of choice the National designates, or various charities of
choice for the National. I kind of liked that idea.
So they sort of pay a little bit of the

(17:55):
freight and people, you know, some people who could use
the funds would benefit from those table feed whether it's
fifty bucks one hundred bucks, that's for the powers to
be to determine the cost to set up at the
trade night, maybe even charge admission. Right, so if you
go to a trade night but you're not getting the table,

(18:19):
you're just walking around with your shoe box or's ion case.
Maybe a couple bucks to get in or five bucks
to get in again. That money could go to charity, right,
that sort of thing. So I kind of like that.
Another dealer was a little more strong about it. He
just thinks it's sort of he told me. He thinks
it's very unfair. It's not going to cause him, it's

(18:41):
not going to stop him from setting up. But he
just thinks it's not you know, it's not the ideal.
And he thinks that it does affect maybe how much
money's in the room, even though that number is huge
no matter what it is. He thinks there's some money
getting sucked out of the room and he's not excited
about that. Kenny said, it's not a deal breaker form,

(19:03):
but he says if he's being honest, which I asked
him to be, that was his take, and so I
get it. Trade night is great promotion for the hobby.
Keeps the show going, it keeps people there. You know,
I thought about it. You're hearing some of these impromptu
trade nights in the hotel lobbies, right, people up to one, two,

(19:23):
three in the morning. I can't do this. I can't
do that at my age. Now, God bless you. If
you can but man, you know, those are just long
days and that sort of thing. But again, to each
their own, it's not going to stop me from attending
the National. I may not go to every trade night
and may pop in and then pop out. It's just

(19:45):
not my scene, if you will. But you know they're
not going away, right. We can talk about it on
this episode, the pros the cons, But at the end
of the day, they're not going away, and if anything,
we're going to see more of them, and they're gonna
get bigger and better, you know. Like the one dealer
I spoke to, I like to see a little more

(20:05):
organization with it, maybe to raise some money for good
causes at the same time as promoting the hobby. So
I'm not opposed that. I thought that was a great
idea proposed by that person that I spoke to. Like
I said, the next national I go to where I
get to drive to, I'm probably gonna bring a case

(20:26):
of cards and maybe, you know, take advantage of the situation,
if you will, for the sheer fact of just adding
to my co you know, gophers for money I could
spend in cards I could buy on the subsequent days
after these trade nights. If I sell some of my wear.
So what say you? Whether you're a dealer or just
a consumer or someone that that sets goes to trade night,

(20:50):
sets up at trade night, trays by, buys and sell.
What are your thoughts? Do you think maybe having it
more organized and collecting small fees that go to chair
do you something you wouldn't mind? Let me know, goodbad,
or indifferent? Let me know your thoughts. Stealer not dealer,
doesn't matter. Everybody's opinion counts, all right. Thank you for

(21:12):
listening to another episode of Hobby Quick Hits. Want to
give out our social media, starting with our website which
is www dot Sportscardinationpodcast dot com. Facebook. You can follow
us at www dot facebook dot com, forward slash Sportscardination Podcast,

(21:32):
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so it's sportscard n ati one, Instagram at Sportscardination Podcast,
or you can email the show Hobby Quick Hits at
gmail dot com. Again, thanks for listening. We'll see you

(21:56):
next week.