I had a table at the show, so I was there Friday through Sunday morning, when I'd had enough of sitting around and left. Overall, I thought it was a pretty good show, with a light-to-moderate crowd Saturday morning, ramping up to a solid moderate for most of the afternoon. Sunday morning, it was fairly light, but people were still flowing in when I left. I checked out M1 Garand prices around the show; those ranged from "Decent" to "What are you smoking??" Definitely no prices that would make the CMP folks lose any sleep, though I debated for a while over an International Harvester postage stamp M1 with an SA barrel, NM op rod and sights, and nice HRA stock, for $950. I'm sure I could've gotten the seller down a bit, but I decided I didn't want to sink any more money into correcting the rifle, especially where the barrel was concerned. The NM parts were tempting, though. The coolest thing was seeing and handling three Johnson Automatic Rifles - first time I'd ever done that. I'd love to own one, but when they cost $5000 to $7000 for a correct example with original finish, I'll pass. I was in a selling mood, so I didn't buy any firearms; however, I did score on a nice uncut SA -9 op rod for a mid-war M1. The vendor was at the top of the ramp on the south side, with a perfect jumble of parts, barrels, and whatnot on his table. I only found his table Sunday morning, and I could have kicked myself for not seeing his stuff on Friday before it was all picked over. He had a real trove of M1 parts, mostly unlabeled and only fairly sorted, which made the hunt more exciting. He had a pile of op rods on the table, sandwiched between two large tackle boxes filled with parts, so I spent some time going through them. At the bottom of all the cut op rods was a lone uncut rod, and I snagged it right away. When I held it up and asked the vendor how much he wanted for it, the response was: "Huh, I didn't know that was in there." 
I picked up a couple of books - a pictorial reference on the M1, and a highly-recommended book about military bolt-action rifles. Unfortunately, I didn't see the Tactical Girls booth - did I miss it, or did they skip this show?
But the best part was on Saturday afternoon when this fellow came by my table and looked at my M1's. He was really interested, and talked of how he wanted to get his first M1 to take to the range. I had a nice shooter M1 on the table, so I told him about it and how it had an excellent barrel but wasn't a collector so it could take range bumps and bruises, etc. I could tell he wanted it, so I was feeling good about making the sale. Finally he said, "OK, sounds great! Do you take credit cards?"
Needless to say, nothing further happened.
I picked up a couple of books - a pictorial reference on the M1, and a highly-recommended book about military bolt-action rifles. Unfortunately, I didn't see the Tactical Girls booth - did I miss it, or did they skip this show?
But the best part was on Saturday afternoon when this fellow came by my table and looked at my M1's. He was really interested, and talked of how he wanted to get his first M1 to take to the range. I had a nice shooter M1 on the table, so I told him about it and how it had an excellent barrel but wasn't a collector so it could take range bumps and bruises, etc. I could tell he wanted it, so I was feeling good about making the sale. Finally he said, "OK, sounds great! Do you take credit cards?"
Needless to say, nothing further happened.
