2022 National Sports Collectors Convention Recap

Six years after my first National card convention, I returned back to Atlantic City. It was interesting to see the numerous changes since I first went to Atlantic City in 2016. Obviously the card hobby has grown significantly, so there were numerous people walking around the show. It was practically a maze trying to navigate through everyone. Compared to Chicago last year, I felt like more people actually came to Atlantic city, which was surprising since everyone seems to rave about the Chicago location the best. More than ever, I noticed numerous collectors documenting their experience at the show with camera crews following them around everywhere. I think it was great to see all this as it exposes the hobby even more to new people. 

My goal at the show this year was to stay away from opening boxes. It has become a yearly tradition to open cases in the hotel room at night with my friends. However, with cases at an all time high, it just was not worth spending five figures and having a slim chance of making your money back. 

The hottest player at the show for baseball definitely was Julio Rodriguez. I had been lucky to invest in Rodriguez early on about 2.5 years ago. I was able to sell one of his cards that I had purchased for $4,000 for over $200,000. Many people speak about how the card hobby is falling off, but I think sales like this show how the high end market is still strong. If you have rare cards that are in demand, there has been no fall off in price. Rather, it’s more of the cards that are not from desirable products that seem to be falling off the most. 

I felt like coming into the show the baseball prospect market was down. However, I was wrong. While sitting at my friends’ booth displaying some of my prospects, I actually garnered significant interest, especially when I was not expecting it. 
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I will be posting a podcast in the upcoming week furthering my experience and interactions with other collectors at the show!