The Citrus County Trading Card Expo brings a proper card show to the northern edge of the Tampa Bay region on Saturday, September 19, 2026, at the Quality Inn & Suites in Hernando, Florida. Admission is $2. For collectors in Citrus County — Inverness, Crystal River, Homosassa, Beverly Hills, Lecanto, and Floral City — this is the local show, and it saves a drive of an hour or more down US 19 or the Suncoast Parkway to reach the New Port Richey, Clearwater, and Tampa circuit.
Citrus County has a deep vein of longtime collectors, and shows in this part of the state have a reputation for surfacing material that has been sitting untouched for thirty or forty years. That is the real appeal here. The floor is smaller than a fairgrounds expo, but the ratio of interesting-to-ordinary tends to run higher, particularly in vintage baseball and football. Expect a mix of sports cards across baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, spanning post-war vintage through junk-wax commons and modern rookies, along with graded slabs, autographs, relic cards, and sports memorabilia. Pokemon and other trading card games have a presence as well, and most shows in this venue include tables carrying non-sports cards, comics, and general collectibles.
The Quality Inn & Suites is a hotel event space with free on-site parking and straightforward access from US 41 and the surrounding county roads. The room is climate controlled and compact enough that you can take in the whole floor without a long walk, which makes it a comfortable stop for older collectors and for families with young kids who lose patience in convention halls.
At a $2 door price, the entry cost is essentially nominal, so plan your budget around the cards. Bring cash in small bills — at a show this size a meaningful share of sellers still prefer it, and cash gives you real leverage in a negotiation on a mid-tier card. Do not assume cash-only, though; many dealers now carry readers. Carrying both is the safe approach.
Come with a written want list organized by set and card number rather than just player names, because standing in front of a 3,000-count box is not the moment to try to remember what you are missing. Bring penny sleeves and toploaders so anything you buy raw survives the ride home. If you are bringing material to sell or trade, sort it by sport and era first and keep your higher-value pieces in a separate secured binder — organized material gets serious offers, unsorted boxes get lowballed.
Standard floor etiquette applies: ask before pulling a card from a display case, handle everything by the edges, and settle on a price before you begin a detailed condition inspection. If you plan to trade, know in advance which of your cards are actually available and which are not.
Arrive early. At smaller regional shows the best raw material moves within the first hour or two, and the collectors who consistently find deals here are the ones standing at the door when it opens. VERIFY: door hours and the vendor table count for this specific date were not published at the time of listing — confirm current times through Card Show Hub or the venue before making the drive, particularly if you are coming from outside Citrus County.
