Originally Posted by Pylon1357
Honestly, for me, I would never attend both days of a 2 day show, in fact thinking about it, I don't think I would bother attending at all, if the first day was a Friday.
" I work during the weekdays, therefore if the show starts on a Friday, I would have to take the day off to travel and attend the show. Secondly, if I don not attend on the Friday, there is little point on the Saturday as the great stuff goes out the door first."
The old format of their shows was Fri, Sat, &Sun with the Fri being for vendors & registered members only but in practice that was a virtually "dead" day, & as you say most of the "good stuff" was gone that day - ie: most sold to other vendors for resale on the other two days. So the format was changed to two days, ie: Fri Sat, but this appears to be a disaster as well, or at least it was for me & a few others I spoke to over those two days.
I don't put much stock in the eBay theory, although it makes sense that this and other auctions online may in fact keep some of he long distance collectors from travelling to the shows.
I agree, neither do I - there is both good & bad about ebay & this is not a discussion of ebay or its merits or lack of.
I for one like to attend the shows, if for no other reason, than to meet up with other collectors.
That I agree with also, its really nice to meet collectors you may not have seen for a while & I frequently meet ebay contacts at shows also.
I have noted a trend at some shows to have multiple table of people selling knock off cheap crap. I am talking about the piles and piles of 10.00 super knives, German patches, para junk. All that stuff produced in Pakistan and Tajikistan, and what ever other Stan produced this stuff. I understand that these vendors bring people in and money into the pockets of the show organizers. The only thing that bothers me about these guys is their Flea Market style selling techniques.
Unfortunately the 905 area shows are getting to that level also & its getting somewhat worse as time goes on. There seems to be a lot more "junk & repro items" at shows than say 10 or 15 yrs ago.
One thing I have noted in my own trends of spending... I will watch say 10, 12 auctions on eBay at any given moment. I might actually bid on 1 or 2. Win 1. When I attend a show, I usually pick up anywhere from 4-6 nice WWI pairs of medals, a modern grouping, and a badge or so. I do like this hands on thing that you can never get at an Action, online or otherwise.
Again am in full agreement with you - NOTHING, NOTHING beats the actual handling of the badge or medal -- to be able to examine it in your hands & make the decision, ebay can be pretty dicey in this regard.
Nothing can ever replace the joy I get from fondling these little metal discs. Ok that sounded perverted but I think you all get the idea.
No problem mate, nothing like handling the object you are about to make a purchase decision on firsthand, & everything you say makes sense & I am in agreement with you!
RCN B
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