RIIIIP With Brody the Kid #10
Riiip with Brody the Kid
Hi everybody! Welcome to this month’s blog, which is a preview of The National Sport Collectors Convention (The National)! Can you believe this is the 40th year of The National? So, this month is all about what will be happening at The National, July 31st-August 4th in Chicago!
Let’s start and talk about promos! Promos, or promotions, are special things that manufacturers or businesses will do to get you to want to go and check out their booth! Sometimes it is just free stuff, or sometimes you get free stuff for buying something. Panini has a silver pack promo. Upper Deck has a promo where if you buy 5 packs of certain Upper Deck cards, and then go to their booth and open them, they give you a free black pack. Topps is doing a promo for buying certain boxes of Topps products. When you bring the boxes to their booth, they give you special packs of Bowman cards made just for The National. Look for autos and parallels in all of these. Pretty cool!
Next, I wanted to list for you some of the booth #s for some of the booths that I know I can’t wait to stop by and check out. These are some of the bigger booths:
HERITAGE AUCTIONS – BOOTH 824
BASEBALL CARD EXCHANGE – BOOTH 830
UPPER DECK – BOOTH 838
DAVE AND ADAM’S – BOOTH 842
PANINI – BOOTH 846
BLOWOUT CARDS – BOOTH 854
TOPPS – BOOTH 676
FANATICS – BOOTH 664
BECKETT – BOOTH 670
LEAF – BOOTH 864
ULTRA PRO – BOOTH 870
eBay – BOOTH 876
PRISTINE AUCTIONS – BOOTH 868
STEEL CITY – 652
ATLANTA SPORTS CARDS – BOOTH 658
COMC – BOOTH 624
TRISTAR – BOOTH 644
CHICAGOLAND SPORTS CARDS – BOOTH 650
GRAND SLAM COLLECTABLES – BOOTH 648
BASEBALL CARD KING – BOOTH 646
I’m already excited and that doesn’t even include the hundreds of other tables and dealers that will be there!
For us kids, there are also some cool things. Panini has a kids break on Saturday at 11 AM. Upper Deck has a raffle every day (Wed. @ 6; Thurs. @ 5; Fri. @ 2; Saturday @ 12:30 and Sun. @ 1). Also, at the Upper Deck booth, make sure to visit Kidority Kards! They are a really cool organization that helps make the hobby fun for kids! Tell them Brody The Kid sent you! Pristine Auctions always does cool raffle giveaways. COMC has a prize wheel you can spin! Last and the coolest of the show in my opinion…
.DO NOT MISS PACK WARS at the Topps Booth! If you have never been at Pack Wars, let me tell you how crazy it is! You get free cards. You get raffle tickets to win autographed cards, jersey cards, oversized cards and more! It is the loudest place to be! Check out the Topps booth with Alan Narz for a lot of fun….and I will definitely be around there, too!
Something else that is really cool when you go to The National, is the number of awesome athletes that will be there to sign autographs and take pictures. These cost money and some of the Hall of Famers can be pretty expensive, so you will have to check with your parents to see who you may be able to meet but it is a lot of fun and sometimes you can walk by the area and see some of them walking around. Here are just some of the famous athletes who will be there: Dr. J Julius Erving, Ray Lewis, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, Deion Sanders, Howie Long, Marshall Faulk, Ozzie Smith, Barry Sanders, Vladimir Guerrero, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Dennis Rodman, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair (Wooooooo!), Joe Montana, Jim Kelly and MANY more! There are more than 100 total autograph guests!
Finally, here are my tips for having a fun and successful trip to The National, especially for kids! Wear some comfortable shoes and bring some snacks with you! Don’t spend all your money at the first booth or the first row!! Take a lap around and check out what the different tables have and compare some prices. Take a picture of the booth number when you see something you may want to buy so you remember where it was! Stop by the Topps booth for their Card Wall! You can leave a card and take a card….and you can do it multiple times because the cards keep changing! Walk the Breakers Area and see some of the coolest case and box breakers in the business do some online breaking! It will give you a chance to see how breaks can work and to see some amazing cards come out of some packs. Check out the main stage to see what events are going on, there will be interviews and definitely check out when Rob and Ivan from Go GTS Live are on stage! They are awesome and I can’t wait to see them in action! Finally, look for me!!! I will have goody bags for the kids and will be looking to interview some kids about their fun time at The National! One last thing…HAVE FUN!!!!!
That wraps up my preview off The National! I hope to see everyone there!
Riiip,
-Brody The Kid
Have a question? E-mail me at brodythekid1@gmail.com
Find me on Twitter @BrodytK and Instagram at brodythekid1
