The December Rare Bear E Sports Collectibles Card Show is the last major card event in west Pasco County before the holidays, running Saturday, December 12 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and Sunday, December 13 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM at the Quality Inn & Suites, 5316 US Highway 19 North, New Port Richey, FL 34652. Admission is $2 and the floor runs to roughly 100 tables.
The timing is the story here. This is the last realistic weekend to buy a card as a Christmas gift and have it in hand with time to spare, and both sides of the table know it. Dealers bring gift-friendly inventory — graded singles in the range people actually spend on presents, sealed product, starter binders, team lots, and boxes of affordable vintage for kids and beginners. Buyers show up with a purpose rather than to browse. The room has a noticeably different energy than a midsummer show: busier, more transactional, and more focused.
That also means the best gift-tier material moves fast. If you are shopping for someone specific, get there at the Saturday 9:00 AM open. By Saturday afternoon the well-priced graded cards in the fifty-to-two-hundred-dollar range are typically picked over. Sunday runs shorter and quieter, and while selection thins, dealers facing a slow December Sunday and a long offseason ahead are often the most flexible on price they will be all year.
Baseball remains the deepest category on this floor. West Pasco County has a large base of longtime collectors, and vintage keeps surfacing from local collections in quantities you will not see at newer markets — post-war Topps and Bowman are consistently well stocked, with pre-war material appearing at individual tables. Football is at peak seasonal interest with the NFL heading into its final weeks and playoff races settling, so football inventory tends to be both plentiful and actively priced. Basketball and hockey are mid-season, and UFC, boxing, racing, and soccer turn up at specialist tables. Across the floor: graded slabs in cases, raw vintage in binders and monster boxes, modern rookies and numbered parallels, autographs, relic and patch cards, plus non-sports cards, Pokemon and modern TCG, comics, sports memorabilia, and general collectibles.
The Quality Inn & Suites is a hotel function space directly on US 19 with free on-site parking and easy access from either direction. It is one compact climate-controlled room rather than a sprawling hall, so you can take in the whole floor at once — practical when you are working against a shopping list and a schedule. Restaurants line US 19 nearby, and the hotel has restrooms and seating for a break.
Bring cash in small bills; it moves negotiations and speeds up dollar-box digging. Bring a want list organized by set and card number, and a separate gift list if you are buying for others. Bring penny sleeves and toploaders — anything you buy as a gift should get home in the condition you bought it. If you are selling or trading, sort by sport and era first and keep high-value pieces separate and secured. Ask before removing cards from cases and settle price before a close inspection.
