2003 Cayucos Show

Cayucos 2003 Personal Show Journal by Christian Willis, May 30-31.

This year was going to be a memorable one, just by virtue of it being my dad's and my first sales table. We had loaded up the van the night before, and left on Friday morning at around 4:30. We stopped at Circle K and had our usual, my dad had his coffee and I had my hot chocolate. We stopped at Kanan Rd. for a short bathroom break and stretch, then continued on until we hit Santa Barbara to have breakfast at Sambo's.

We arrived at the show hall a couple hours later and said "hi" to the usual gang. The very first thing, I was approached about possibly being the editor for the Central and Southern Counties Insulator Club to which I gave an enthusiastic "Yes!" I have always wanted to be an editor of an insulator-related publication ever since I helped devise S.O.J.I.C. with Spencer Howard several years ago (which never took off). So this was definitely a great start to the show.

My dad and I helped everyone set up and arrange the tables for this show. The tables had to be rearranged from the usual configuration due to the great sales table turnout this year. The room was arranged with the usual tables around the perimeter of the room, and four U-shaped banks in the middle of the hall, which worked out well. Our table was in the U-shaped bank closest to the front entrance. Also in our bank were the Merzoian brothers and Dave Brown.

The show hall had also been changed a bit: the bar had been moved from the back of the hall to the side next to the kitchen, and swags of fabric hung from the ceilings, which I'm sure was made to make it seem softer or something, but it just made the headroom lower and almost a bit claustrophobic.

Our table was pretty much split in half: I had insulators on my half, and my dad had his antiques on his half. My insulators were pretty much priced to go, except for the nicer ones (what few there were) that I put up on my portable light box. Interestingly, my first sale was not to some beginning collector, but to Dwayne Anthony! It was funny to think that back in 1992 when I was buying insulators from him at my first insulator show, 11 years later he would be buying an insulator from my sales table! He purchased a CD 175 Hemingray I had received as a gift from Rick Soller for picking up and shipping to him a bunch of foreign glass from a man in Newport Beach. That paid for my table right there.

Dwayne had also brought with him the CD 132.4 I had asked him if I could make payments on back at the 2002 Tulare show. I gave him a check for the remainder of the balance, and the long-awaited piece was finally mine! I set it down behind my light box, and within five minutes I was getting questions if it was for sale, so I figured that was my cue to go put it out in the van.

Overall, most of my purchases for this show were pretty low-key. I did come away from the show with a few nice pieces though, including a wide groove CD 257 No Name Patent/Patent in aqua (first one I'd ever seen), a CD 252 Hemingay-62 error in ice aqua, and a great CD 121 Am.Tel. toll in sage green, a color I didn't know Hemingray produced in this style until now.

The sales were fairly soft, too. I sold a couple items to Dave Hall and one to Dave Brown. I had a few bites on my "2 for $1" area of the table. On the second day, I also had a father and his daughters buy a few, and I gave them probably at least 8 other ones for free. Near the end of the show, I divided my table up into squares labeled "starter sets" which comprised of groups of four or five insulators for, say, $10 or $15 for beginning or lightweight collectors. I didn't have any bites, but I might try it again some time.

Tearing down was fairly painless, and Sid's fantastic sausage certainly helped things along nicely! We helped take down the tables and set a few up for the barbeque. Sid and Alfred's tri-tip, beans, salad, and garlic bread was every bit as good as the years before, and Sid was even nice enough to save us some sausage and tri-tip to take home. Overall, I'd say this was another great show! My sales paid for the table, I made a few bucks, and came home with a lighter load, so I figure I did pretty well for my first sales table! This may become a regular thing. :)