Well, I got back from the PCCE on Friday night after two days of some very interesting happenings. On my way to the show, Troy Kinunen of MEARS called to tell me that his partner, Dave Bushing, had retired from authenticating. So I got an exclusive, very interesting interview on Dave’s thoughts and I guarantee you won’t want to miss the article I'm just about finished with.

As far as the show … It was very well set up by Ryan Friedman and crew. Carpeted floor, solid dealers and auction houses were present, but the foot traffic was very light. Some of the dealers I talked to were very pumped about a couple customers walking in with items to sell, but some of the dealers were disappointed that this four-day show didn’t have too many attendees.

I really enjoyed talking to people who I never met in person. It was a very relaxed atmosphere and some of the dealers who set up, and normally don't have a lot of time to chat at a larger show, had time to talk with the customers there.

The Marshall Fogel keynote speech on Friday was very good. I am hoping to get a copy of the edited video from footage of the conference that I can post on our site, but it won’t be ready for at least a couple weeks.

The panel discussions on Friday were decent. I enjoyed the autograph expert panel. Between Kevin Keating, Richard Albersheim, Ron Gordon and James Spence, those guys had a lot of stories and could have talked for a lot longer than the time alotted, 45 minutes.

Lou Lampson, Dave Bushing and John Taube were on hand for the game-used equipment session of the event and they didn’t talk about anything too earth shattering. Dave Hunt, owner of Hunt Auctions was in the crowd and asked what was probably the toughest question of the day; he asked each member to tell the crowd what one item they misauthenticated that they wish they had a another crack at, but unfortunately none of the members really answered the question with any specific detail.

One of the coolest things I saw at the show was MEARS’ newly developed bat and jersey display cases that were designed by David B. Driscoll, Curator of Business & Technology at the Wisconsin Historical Society. I will have some pictures of the cases uploaded by tomorrow. They used all archival material and professional imagery. Very top-of-the-line.

T.S. O'Connell will be reporting on the last two days of the show, so make sure to pick up SCD to read about how it finished.

Note: Photos are from the Cubs museum display (top) and Heritage Auction's Chris Ivy and Hunt Auctions David Hunt (bottom).