Game Planning For The National Sports Card Convention
MJ Family Time Cards gets ready for The National Sports Card Convention, and they share their Happy Hobby plans with us!
Each “Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter” pack has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets – like me!
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This is the PAID version of the “Happy Hobby Sports Cards” Newsletter, with the free version coming again next week.
🏈 ⚾ 🏀Our First National Card Show
Josh and his son Micah are two Happy Hobbyists who have been with our YouTube channel for a couple years now, and they offered to cover The National Sports Card Convention, which is happening in Cleveland this year, from July 24 to 28. Josh and Micah (along with their wife/mom) make up MJ Family Time Cards, which is a great YouTube channel of their own right!
MJ Family Time Cards is headed to our first National Sports Card Convention in Cleveland!
The National is the largest card show in America -- and the world. It’s just a few hours away for us, and we plan on attending three days of the show. On our YouTube channel, we’ll chronicle our trip with videos, and we’ll share our daily experiences.
Gonos asked us to share our expectations for the show with all the Happy Hobbyists out there – and follow-up after the show to see how it all panned out. We have attended one large show in Columbus, Ohio, the NCXPO (we have a vlog on that show on the channel) and we attend our monthly local card show, but this will be bigger than anything we have seen.
“Preparation is Everything.” – NBA Hall-of-Famer David Robinson
I watched some videos for tips about going to The National, as far as preparation. From a physical standpoint we are going to wear comfy shoes, and we bought some collapsable stools for sitting at tables, filtering through boxes. We also bring some snacks and hydration in our backpacks.
Micah and I are “bargain bin” guys so occasionally we end up with a lot of cards. We will both carry backpacks for three 800-count boxes (two in mine and one in his). The National has an interactive map on their website this year, so we’re planning our routes for each day.
With no experience at a show this big, I’m sure we will learn some tricks to navigating if we ever go again.
“Life is 95 Percent Anticipation.” – Actress Gloria Swanson
We are excited for multiple aspects of this show, but I’m most excited to see Micah’s face when we walk in. His excitement excites me!
We have some specific vendors we plan to stop at, like Got Baseball cards, Sports Card Investor, Kentucky Road Show, and Card Collector 2. We’re also definitely going to hit some retail vendors, too, like BCW (free supplies!), Topps/Fanatics (free cards!), and DA Card World (free cards and supplies!).
While we are there for cards, we just want to enjoy the overall experience, hoping to see some of the influencers we watch, like Pac Man, Ryan from Card Collector and others.
Overall, we are looking for a good time, my wife and daughter will be coming one day with us to really document the whole day, which will be a fun family day for us
“Have a Game Plan, Then Do Your Best To Achieve It.” NASCAR Driver Alan Kulwicki
From what I have read, having a plan helps keep you from being overwhelmed If you watch our channel, we are working on a limited budget, and we love ripping packs together. Finding value in the Bargain Bins at shows makes us happy, too.
Besides the bins, some specific things we are looking for,
Some MLB and NBA Hall of Fame player relics.
Good wax deals, maybe some boxes or packs we have never opened before.
A Wemby Prizm and Optic rookie card!
Lew Burdette cards! He’s a relative of ours, and we are trying to get all his cards.
Singles from the Topps Bob Ross set. I have 2 boxes unopened I’m keeping sealed!
Micah wants to find Jerry West cards. I’d like to see him get an auto!
Micah is also looking to collect Donruss Green Lazers from top rookies in NBA each year, he already has Wemby and Chet who he pulled from packs!
We plan to grade some cards with Got Baseball Cards, so a video should be up on the channel soon about what we are going to get graded.
Meet new people and other collectors.
Enjoy our time together, not sure when The National will ever be this close to us again.
We are so thankful for the opportunity to go and have a good time.
We would love to try and answer any questions regarding the show from any other Happy Hobbyists. We plan to have plenty of videos, and follow-ups with our pickups and the experience.
Comment below with some things you’d like us to check out, and we’ll do our best!
Check back in a couple weeks to see how The National worked out for the MJ Family Time Cards crew! Also, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel here.
🏈 ⚾ 🏀CHECK OUT MANTEL’S DEDICATED FEED FOR “THE NATIONAL”!
Head over to OnMantel.com, one of the coolest hobby spots for free news and community chatter, as they set up a dedicated feed for The National Sports Card Convention. What does that mean?
“Our new National Sports Collectors Convention feed allows you to experience the excitement of the convention no matter where you are. This specialized feed aggregates all posts, updates, discussions, and media related to the event, making it effortless for attendees and exhibitors to share their experiences and finds. Even if you couldn’t make it this year, you can catch up on all the action and feel like you’re part of the excitement.” – Trending On Mantel Newsletter
OnMantel also rolled out these enhancements for The National:
National Exhibitor Booth Number: Locate exhibitors easily with booth numbers now displayed alongside usernames.
Store Icon Badge: This badge identifies those who are exhibiting at the National and future events, media, as well as business owners in the hobby.
You can subscribe to learn more about what’s happening OnMantel right here!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS: #3 of 23
Imhoff breaks down all the moves Fanatics should make, just two years away from when they unify the baseball, football and basketball card licenses in 2026. He shared his first move in our June 20 newsletter, and he’ll continue to share more of these going forward.
Here’s Patrick’s latest move on how he’d do things differently if he were the CEO of Fanatics:
No. 3 – DECIDE WHICH PRODUCTS TO KEEP -- OR RETIRE
For Fanatics to successfully produce cards for three different sports and ensure cards are released in the correct calendar year (no more releasing 2023 products in 2024), some hard choices would need to be made. Those hard choices would mean removing some products from the release schedule.
My goal would be to cater to all collectors, regardless of why they collect and what type of budget they were on. That would mean baseball card products like Big League Baseball for entry level collectors and kids, Series 1 and 2 and Chrome for the mid-range collectors, and products like Tier One and Sterling for the high-end collectors.
Some tough decisions I would make right away would be to dump Topps Update Series and consolidate rookies into Series 1 and 2.
Rookies who make a team out of Spring Training are in Series 1.
Rookies who premier after the regular season begins go in Series 2.
Rookies who come out after Series 2 go in the following year’s Series 1.
For Chrome, there will be just one product: Topps Chrome (but I will keep Chrome Platinum Anniversary because David Gonos likes it) and it will release after Series 2, just to get as many rookies in as possible.
[Editor’s note: Phewwwwwwwwww!!!]
The other Chrome products (Black and Cosmic) will become inserts and parallels in the Chrome release.
I would look at all products to decide which ones to dump, but some like Fire, Museum, Gilded, Finest, Holiday and Dynamic Duals would all be on the cutting block for sure.
Subscribe to Patrick’s free sports cards newsletter here!
⚾CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY: 1971 Topps Thurman Munson #5
Weirdly, this is one of those awesome baseball cards that makes us both happy and sad at the same time. I wonder if there’s a word for such a thing. It gives us “all the feels” as my wife sometimes will say to me.
Before we talk about Munson, let’s talk about 1971 Topps, which is a truly unusual design. This was the first Topps set with black borders, making it tough to find these cards in great condition, but the card front also showed the player names in all lowercase letters.
This set has some solid rookie cards in Bert Blyleven, Steve Garvey, Don Baylor and Dusty Baker (both on card No. 709!), but it also had great legends in their later years, like Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays. Toss in a few cards of young superstars, like Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson and Nolan Ryan, and you have yourself a bona fide beast of a set!
As far as Thurman Munson goes, he was the fourth overall pick in the 1968 MLB Amateur Draft, and he played just one season in the minors before being shipped off to play in The Bronx. This 1971 Topps Thurman Munson card was his second-year card.
Munson became a Yankees legend in the post-Mickey Mantle Yankee world, helping the team win two World Series in the ‘70s. He was the 1970 AL Rookie of the Year and the 1976 AL MVP, along with being a seven-time All-Star before he tragically died in a plane crash on Aug. 2, 1979.
The Yankees named him team captain in 1976, and he was the first Yankees captain since Lou Gehrig!
The 1971 Topps set was the first year they used action shots, and Munson applying a hard tag to Chuck Dobson was as action-y as they get! Tack on a Topps All-Star Rookie Cup, and you have one of the greatest second-year cards in Topps history!
Thurman had plenty of rivals on other teams (Carlton Fisk and Johnny Bench, specifically) and on his own team (he didn’t get along great with Reggie Jackson, whom he got George Steinbrenner to trade for).
With a name like “Thurman,” I feel like you had to be grumpy and tough – which also explains why Thurman Thomas kinda has a chip on his shoulder, too.
This card is as close to being as perfect a baseball card as there is – yet, no copies of this card has ever been graded a PSA 10. I like to think ol’ grumpy Thurman would have wanted it that way.
Have a Happy Hobby! And don’t forget to listen to our Happy Hobby Sports Cards Podcast on Apple or Spotify!
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Josh, super pumped for you and Micah, hope you all have a blast and fill all 3 of those boxes. Tell Micah I recommend the David Robinson rookie as one of his NBA HOF guys and also Tim Duncan. You could line up those guys with your Wendy card and have a solid display for all time great Spurs.
Nice write up by Josh. Excited for you, never been to one, but hope to make a Chicago one someday. Hope you and your family have an awesome time, and you guys find some new wax to bust!
Again, I completely agree with CEO Patrick. On a related note, it’s ridiculous we’re still waiting for one of the big hobby/retail 2023 football releases (Select) in July/August ‘24! I really wonder how far behind Panini will be when the license ends, cause how in the world could they catch up at this rate… Anyway, I love your defined rules for rookies, Patrick, as well as dumping Update!
You hit the nail on the head, David, what is it about the name Thurman that connotes grumpiness? I don’t know, but it sure does!
Thanks for sharing, fellas.