[seanrs1]

I went to the National (my first time going) with over 2k in cash and a bunch of cards to use as trade fodder. I did not buy a single card! Seems like there are much better deals on Ebay for what I am looking to buy.

I wanted to get some feedback on my thoughts about the show and the hobby in general.

The dealers did not seem to be at the show to move product at Ebay comps. This seemed a little strange to me, because I assumed no Ebay fees and cash is a better outcome then selling online.

It appeared to me that most dealers were there to buy inventory at 70-80% of comps to flip and make a profit.

I was very surprised that most of the attendees seem to be at the show to make money on cards with a smaller amount of collectors looking for specific items. There were also plenty of people going through the dollar bins to find treasure (I was not one of them).

A lot of people were looking to trade high end plus cash to dealers for even more higher end cards.

I only collect baseball cards, and I did not realize most people are more into football and basketball. I do not understand the crazy prices on modern football and basketball of guys that will not make the HOF or have a lasting legacy.

I thought I might have more success at trade night, but trade night was really just attendees that are dealers looking to buy from others way below comps and sell cards above comps. I was hoping to find other Ohtani collectors looking to trade with other Ohtani collectors...but no such luck.

And lastly...everyone seems obsessed with graded cards...especially PSA10. I assume its because its easier to sell or trade a graded card than to deal with raw cards. But it seemed to me that like 90%+ of modern cards that were worth of $25 or so were graded. And most graded cards seemed to be PSA10. I was looking for raw and PSA9 cards to buy.

Maybe I should look to people on here to try to trade/buy Ohtani cards with!