Dallas Card Show — Houston
First time vending in the Dallas Card Show circuit, albeit at the familiar George R. Brown Convention Center. This was probably the 2nd show we did as vendors with as many nationally recognized vendors — the West Coast Card Show being the other.
Friday started off with a huge trade — I traded the just acquired Tom Brady Lighthouse Downtown in a PSA 10, plus $1k, for a PSA 9 2003 Topps Chrome LeBron James refractor, a BGS 9.5 2003 Topps Chrome LeBron James, and a Jordan PSA 9 Scoring Kings — $103k of value across both sides. This was a tough trade as I had wanted that Brady Downtown since it last sold in February (I was outbid). The other party in the trade had one as well and initially offered it for my Kaboom and $5k, which I declined. I was just not comfortable having two cards that I paid about $50k apiece on with no recent public sales. Rarity aside, if the Brady market turns, that's too risky. We also moved two PSA 10 2018 Chrome Ohtani refractors.
Day 2 started off big with another big trade. I received my first ever Michael Jordan patch auto — a 2005-06 SP Game Used Legendary Fabrics Autographs Michael Jordan /23, BGS 8 with a 10 auto grade — plus a little cash, for four cards: a Brady Kaboom PSA 10, a LeBron Color Blast PSA 10, a LeBron Topps Chrome rookie BGS 9.5 (just acquired the day before), and a LeBron Downtown PSA 10 acquired at The National.
I paid a touch high, but it's Jordan, and I felt we were a little heavy on Brady. As our portfolio of cards grows, you really need an anchor Jordan in there somewhere. Speaking of Jordan, we sold the Jordan Scoring Kings for about $15k cash. The booth was busy and there was another near deal with the vendor across from us for my 52 Bowman Mantle, but the cash component and trade was not what I was looking for. Ultimately, the deal fell apart.
Another highlight was Grayson walking the PSA 10 Brady 2020 Optic Super Bowl Downtown around and getting a $32,500 offer that we closed. We'd picked that one up at $18k, so while, yes, we could have held out longer for a bigger return, I am quite comfortable taking the $14,500 margin and moving on. He made a nice commission and we created some needed liquidity for the incoming Donruss version.
Update: the last public sale on eBay was $31,950 for the 2020 Optic PSA 10 (albeit a Chinese seller). Thus, we got out in time.
Day 3 was Dalton's turn and the traffic was substantially slower. The highlight was easily getting a Dave Winfield auto on a picture of us from the Home Run Derby in 2024. We made a few smaller buys and sales, but it was definitely nothing like the first couple days.
Overall, it was a show that checked a lot of boxes we needed checked post-National and pre-Front Row in Pasadena.