The National

Our 3rd National together, and our five days in Rosemont felt a bit like a rollercoaster. Before we even left, The Hyatt killing the trade nights had us scramble our plans — our second not-so-fun Hyatt experience in recent months.

Our first goal was to get a few cards graded with PSA and Beckett. Grayson went in the PSA line and I took Beckett. Even with us being VIP and going straight to the line, it took me 2 hours to get through. Grayson was done in an hour. Like many others who paid for the cards to be ready at the show, ours weren't. We were also 0-2 with Beckett, as we tried to upgrade an MBA Gold Label 9 to a 9.5 and a previous BVG Mantle that had been marked as trimmed.

We walked the show floor Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Friday and Saturday the crowds were simply too much. Grayson did 2 of the trade nights and the process for securing a wristband was much better than last year.

Because of the crowds, we decided to use the VIP lounge as our spot during the busy days. I got to the VIP room early and we stayed put and let the deals come to us.

Outside of a few pieces we were purposely stubborn on, we sold everything we wanted to. We sold 10X what we did last year and had one huge trade that had $100k in value on each side changing hands.

Some of what came home with:

• Tom Brady Lighthouse Downtown, PSA 10
• 2018 Tom Brady Kaboom, PSA 10
• 1952 Bowman Mickey Mantle, PSA 6
• 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly rookie, PSA 10
• LeBron James Downtown, PSA 10