Day 2:
Day 2 of the National started with Richie coming by and showing off some of his gloves and equipment that he had brought. I showed him my stuff and we tried to work on a deal. THIS is what I enjoyed most about the National, the conversations with other collectors and the trading. Anyway, we struck a deal where I bought a mushroom bat and a couple of gloves. Joel stopped by later and we took the shuttle to the convention center. When we got there we decided to split up because being together wouldn't be in our best interest since we all like the same stuff. So, we parted ways. We searched the convention for a couple of hours and I got to meet up with a lot of great collectors: Paul Montesano, Bob Seedhouse, Herbert Thomas, Carlton Hendricks, Jean Roy, John Graham, Matt Hart, John Kanuit to name a few. It was great to see Paul because he got me hooked in the early years when I started buying gloves from him, Buckleback, and Zrrickkid. Aw the good ole' days.
While I was there, I picked up a nice Thomas wilson complete uniform, a decent looking no brand full web, and a Spalding Heydler ball that eventually Richie and I swapped. All in all it was a good day. Overall the whole National was so-so. Brett by far had the best equipment glove wise in my opinion, but the conversations and trading outside the National made the trip well worth it.
Day 3
I took in the city on this day and saw the United Center and Chinatown. Joel and I decided to head back for a quick search at the National for about an hour or so. On the shuttle we got to talk with card collector Donald Spence who talked to us about players he watched in his youth and his Mays gamer. Our search didn't turn up much, but I did find an Ed Maynard sewn web that I'll eventually make available soon. It looked high quality and plus I had to pick up the socks that were missing from my Thomas Wilson uniform. I did stop by Brett and William's booth one last time and invited them over to see the stuff I brought and we made arrangements to meet up. Joel and I headed out, but we ran into Norcal collector Allan W who had something to show us. He told us that he did pick up a glove that day and handed the bag over to me to check out. In my head, I was thinking it was probably some nice 20's/30's model or something. Inside was a dirty white Spalding red tag King Patent!!!!!
I looked at Joel like "You gotta be kidding me!" Well, we congratulated Allan on his score and we headed out. When we got to the shuttle I told Joel "Could you believe a f$%%%n King patent?" What a day!
Please note that there was/is no ill will between collectors here I'm actually thrilled Allan scored it, but there is a competitive spirit at times between some of us. Many times I run into a fellow collector at a flea market here in California and once we see each other the first thing out of our mouth is "Don't start pulling a lot of s#@t out!" HAHAHA GOOD TIMES!
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