it depends on your collecting focus. If you are into high end, sich as figures painted by artists, Russian painted figures, military oil paintings etc., I would say the MFCA. If you do mass manufactured figures and plastic figures, the MFCA is probably not for you.
Gettysburg stands out from the location. The battlefield is very well preserved and the town is really attractive to visitors.
The MFCA is like a French Foreign Legionnaire; two fellow soldiers have already been picked off up in the fort watch tower (The East Coast Toy Soldier Show and The Chicago Toy Soldier Show).....................out of IMO the "Big Three", they are the last man standing.
The Gettysburg Toy Soldier Show is in a great location needless to say, but it's morphed into a plastics show made up of a lot of "dealers" who are just part timers either thinning out their collections or Ebay peddlers running around pre show grabbing all the bargains to later flip on Ebay.
There is a famous Ebay peddler from the tri state area who carpet bombs every toy soldier Facebook page with picture after picture of the 42,000 items in his "inventory", he holds more stock than I do as a legit full time dealer, as far as I know he does not attend the show.
That show used to feature The Marxman, Crown Toy Soldiers, Memphis Toy Soldiers, Dutkins Toy Soldiers, Stockade Miniatures, Al Green's Toy Soldiers, Brian Greenwood/K & C, Carl Hogermeyer and myself, Minutemen Toy Soldiers.
Of those eight dealers, only myself and Crown are left, Crown has moved to Texarcana, the others have either retired or sadly, passed away.
There used to be another hobo who drove around cleaning out every Target and Walmart on the Eastern half of the US of 21st Century Toys and FOV vehicles, since both of those companies went into the shitter, he stopped coming, what a loss for the hobby.
There was another guy who took his place at Gettysburg with a 9 foot high wall of said vehicles, he'd come in with 934 of them, go home with 934 of them, not sure what the point of coming to the show was for that guy, yet another "dealer" on the show circuit.
Hobby Bunker started attending last year and it was myself in one corner, him in the other as the only two full time legit metal toy soldier dealers, my sales from 2019 (the last year I attended) got cut in half.
Several metal collector customers of mine attended, one said "This show sucks"...............hmm, ok then.
Another dealer who used to attend and I worked out an arrangement, I bought his inventory, so he's out too.
If you are a metal collector, that show is really not for you.
The best East Coast show at this point IMO is MFCA by a country mile, a great two day event, the exhibit area alone is worth the trip, plus Keith Rocco is there, he's a great guy, a good friend and a world famous artist.
I've always loved that show since the first time I attended.
That said; it's not worth a trip from across the pond, a good many of the dealers sell paints, brushes, hobby supplies, high end Russian figures, plus you've got the official unofficial Osprey USA dealer with 62,768 Ospreys on his tables, surprised his nutbag has not popped lugging 700 pounds of books in and out of the 900 toy soldier/wargaming/model kit/general toy/gun shows he attends.
So, there you have it.
