Card Show Weekend Recap May 16 to 17: Silicon Valley, LA Card Expo, Baltimore, and Dallas Closing Days

The May 16 to 17 weekend was one of the busiest card show slates of the spring. The Silicon Valley Card and Collectible Show, the LA Card Expo, the Baltimore Card Show, and the closing days of the four-day Dallas Card Show all ran simultaneously, with a quieter Spring Hill Showcase rounding out the Florida slate. Here is what moved, what surprised, and what next weekend is shaping up to look like.

Silicon Valley Card and Collectible Show (San Jose, CA)

The free weekend show at Westgate Center Mall drew its usual packed-house crowd, with sports and Pokemon dealers splitting roughly evenly across the floor. Pokemon Chaos Rising prerelease product was a major topic at the Pokemon tables given the May 22 street date, with a handful of sealed Chaos Rising Build and Battle Boxes from local LGS prereleases moving for $50 to $60 against a $30 retail price. The dealer takeaway: people will pay a real premium to skip the line on Friday.

• Sports volume was steady but not blistering. Modern basketball and football autographs continued to anchor the booth-to-booth flow, with vintage tables reporting flat-to-soft attendance compared to April shows.
• Pokemon was the loudest segment. Modern Pokemon SIRs and Trainer Gallery hits dominated case display traffic, and a Mega Lucario ex SIR from prerelease packs reportedly sold for $180 cash at a back-corner table.
• Lorcana Wilds Unknown debuted at retail two days before the show, and Iconic Buzz Lightyear singles were already on display at three separate tables.

LA Card Expo

The LA Card Expo split its weekend across sports memorabilia, modern card singles, and a healthy slabs section. The biggest story from LA was a Goldin-tier 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan PSA 10 changing hands on the floor for a reported $42,000 — well above current public comps. The card moved in a private booth-to-booth deal, but multiple dealers we spoke with cited the sale as a sign that high-grade vintage basketball is still finding buyers even with PSA-graded singles trading softer broadly thanks to the NoPSAMay boycott.

Baltimore Card Show

The Baltimore Card Show at Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena pulled a strong East Coast crowd. Vintage baseball was the headliner: a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 4 traded for $98,000 in cash on Saturday afternoon. Mid-grade vintage Topps stars from the 1950s and 1960s continued the strong April pattern, with raw mid-grade Mantle, Mays, and Aaron singles selling quickly at fair-market prices.

"East Coast vintage shows are different. The buyers here know exactly what they want, they show up with cash, and they leave with mid-grade slab stacks that would sit on a West Coast floor for hours."

Dallas Card Show (Allen, TX) - Closing Days

Dallas ran its four-day format Thursday May 14 through Sunday May 17, and the back half of the show was where most of the deal volume happened. 2026 Bowman Baseball was the runaway story on Saturday and Sunday, with raw first-Bowman prospect autographs from the set's marquee names moving in the $80 to $300 band depending on player. Multiple breakers ran live breaks from the floor through the weekend, which kept foot traffic on the modern baseball side higher than usual for a Dallas show.

Spring Hill Showcase (Spring Hill, FL)

The Spring Hill Showcase at St. Joan of Arc Parish Hall stayed regional and quiet but functional. A steady crowd of local collectors moved bulk vintage and modern Pokemon throughout the weekend, with no headline sales but a clean experience for the dealers who set up.

Next Weekend

May 23 to 24 brings the run-up to Memorial Day weekend, with a national slate that includes the Toronto Sports Card Show, the East Coast National in Atlantic City prep events, and multiple smaller LGS shows hosting Chaos Rising launch parties on Friday May 22. Use the Card Shop Finder events page to check what is local to you.