Guest article by Tony Joyce aka Enigma

Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Raleigh, NC, card show on January 24-25. This was the first show of the New Year for the area. Card shows tend to bring out the same vendors and the same attendees, but this was not the case. Though I did see some familiar faces, there were numerous new faces and it was a blast meeting and talking to all of them.

Inside Pitch Promotions was our host and it was promoted by owner, Ray Mozingo. Ray goes out of his way to make sure that both the vendors and the attendees have a great time. On occasions, usually at 3-day events, Ray will bring in former/current athletes with ties to the area for autograph signings.

The fee to attend a show is normally only $5 a day or $7 for a weekend pass. This gives you the luxury to peruse the show at your own pace and enjoy yourself. At these shows, you will find anything from vintage to modern cards, wax packs and boxes, memorabilia, pennants, autographed items, McFarlane figures and other odds and ends.

For those looking to sell, the table fees are cost effective and you get a discount for booking early. Inside Pitch has shows in five locations throughout the year, normally multiple times in each location you can find Inside Pitch in the North Carolina area in cities such as Charlotte, Greensboro, Hickory and Raleigh. And as a nice treat, they even go to Knoxville, TN, on occasions.

A nice feature that Ray and Inside Pitch provide to the attendees is a raffle drawing for vouchers to use at the show. Every two hours, a name is drawn from all those who have filled out the form with their paid admittance. If the attendee is present, he/she wins $1 vouchers totaling $10 that can be used at any booth. The vendor in turn can cash these in to get the monetary equivalent. This promotes more buying and selling at the show.

As a vendor, I had the privilege of representing my business, Cards By The Box as well as the largest trading site on the internet, Sports Card Forum. While most vendors focus on individual cards, we were there with packs and boxes galore.

One of the specials Cards By The Box provides for fellow active Sports Card Forum members is a $5 discount on all hobby boxes. We had many members come by our tables to take advantage of this offer and invite more to do it. It’s like getting your price of admission given back to you, not to mention the great prices we offer.

We had one gentleman walk up to our tables and spot our last two boxes of 2008 Topps Sterling Baseball. Between our sales online and at the show, that’s all that was left from the case. He saw our price and was simply in shock. We had it at $225 a box. He got excited as the only other table that had it was selling it for $260. He bought one and pulled the card pictured below from a Ryne Sandberg box. Unfortunately, the man’s hand was shaking and a clear picture could not be made. Curiosity got the best of him and he grabbed the other box. It was a Honus Wagner box. The big card was a Quad Memorabilia piece with three bat swatches and a jersey swatch numbered 4/10 of Wagner. The card can be found here.

Once those pulls got around the crowded building, traffic came to our tables in hordes. One of the biggest fears of buying wax at shows is the possibility of box searchers. These are people who buy cases and open box until they get the case hits and then try to resell the rest of the boxes to make some money back. Well, when you get someone showing off cards such as those, the fear dissipates. Nothing like word of mouth advertising.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. I’d really like to thank Ray and Inside Pitch Promotions for putting this show together and letting me be a part of it. I look forward to the next shows in Charlotte (February 28-March 1) and Hickory (March 14). Speaking of the Charlotte show, we will have a special guest with us. Tom Farrell from Press Pass will be joining us to talk about the hobby and promote the release of 2009 Press Pass Eclipse Racing. We will have hobby boxes of Eclipse at the show and with every box purchase; the buyer will get a surprise bonus gift from Tom Farrell, courtesy of Press Pass. Don’t miss out on this opportunity as this will be while supplies last.