Support your local card shop

It’s no secret that the best deals on cards are found online through one of the many mega warehouses.  Prices on boxes are  so low that there’s really no good reason to buy a hobby box anywhere BUT the internet. However, nothing on the internet will ever replicate the feeling of an afternoon in a card shop, wandering the same aisle(s) you wander on every visit, looking at the same assortment of packs, the same singles, and the same boxes, updated only when new product is released.

I don’t think the hobby is dying, but it is most certainly changing.  While the warehouses can afford to advertise through some of our blogs and on various message boards and forums, the “little guy” doesn’t have a budget for anything more than the lighted sign on the outside of the building.  So why don’t we all take a minute to spread the word about our own favorite local card shops?  What we like, what we buy, etc.

Before I go any further, let me be clear that I’m getting anything in return for my “endorsement”, nor am I expecting anything.  Plus, my endorsement is pretty much worthless anyway.  In fact, I’m going to leave out the shop’s name altogether, and if you’re interested and live in my area (San Diego), I’d be more than happy to pass along the name.  Good?

My shop is located in the rear of a tiny “strip mall” on a not-so-traveled road connecting two not-so-central towns in my county.  You have almost zero reason to take this particular road unless you’re trying to get to that store that sells everything in jumbo sizes and massive quantities, and even that would be if you don’t feel like taking the highway to the jumbo box store that’s probably actually closer.  And I use the term “strip mall” loosely.  I can’t even remember the names of offices around it.  There’s a Mexican restaurant and a tax place, I think.  And my shop’s name isn’t even on the main sign at the front of the complex!  I’d actually driven by the shop a handful of times without ever knowing it was there, and even when I first found out about it I almost drove right by – and that was after knowing the address.  It’s very easy to overlook.

There are two distinct halves in the store.  One half is baseball and supplies, the other is everything else.  You first walk in and are greeted by an absolutely glorious table of junk wax from the late ’80s and early ’90s.  Also on this table are boxes of oddball issues (Mario Kart cards come to mind), Kenner Starting Line Up figurines, and more.  To the right is an entire wall of packs, something of almost everything from the past five years or more.  It’s quite expansive, and they’re all unsearched – I know because I’ve pulled a few really nice hits from individual wax.

Straight ahead from the door is the ‘main’ wall which runs the length of the store, absolutely loaded with unopened boxes and high end packs of Sweet Spot, Ball Park Collection, etc.  About three quarters of the way down it switches over to football and maybe basketball – I’ve never been interested enough to look.

The wall opposite the “baseball pack wall” at the far end of the store is all basketball and football packs, and perhaps some hockey.  Again, because of a general lack of interest on my behalf (not others, I’m sure) I’ve only been to this side of the store a couple times.

The wall adjacent to the door – which is behind you after entering – is all oddball boxes.  Star Trek, Star Wars, Garbage Pail Kids, stuff like that.  In the corner, where the “odd ball wall” meets the basketball/football wall, is a shelf of supplies.

The center “island” is almost entirely supplies, piled high with various thicknesses of top loaders, sleeves, pages, etc, along with more figurines and various collectibles.  And you’re not in cardboard overload by now, all of the counters are more than just plain ol’ counters.  They’re display cases which are mostly consignment!  Lots of old singles can be found behind the glass, not to mention the pseudo famous bargain relic bin.  (Quick thanks to whoever prices their relics at three for $2; keep ’em coming!).

Good stuff.  I’m sure there’s a lot more to be discovered, and it’s my fault for not going to the shop more on weekends when I’d have more than a lunch hour to look around.  It’s shops like these that make me think the hobby will still be around for quite a while longer.  The experience of the shop is almost as priceless as anything I could ever pull from a pack.  And come to think of it, I haven’t been in a while.  A shopping spree is in order next week!

Now it’s your turn to tell everyone about YOUR shop!  Use the name if you’d like, or not.  And feel free to leave a comment or create a post of your own.  The only thing I enjoy more than reading about peoples’ cards is reading about peoples’ card shops, and I have a feeling I’m not alone.

The times they are a changing

I recently had a chance to visit my local card shop with my favorite card collecting partner, the guy who introduced me to the sport of baseball and the hobby of card collecting: my dad.  I vividly remember the days when he’d pick me up from pre-school (it was usually my mom who had the duty), because I knew we’d stop at Grand City in Brunswick, Maine, and we’d each pick out a couple packs of 1987 Topps.  I was absolutely hooked on the hobby, because I now owned cards of the very same guys I saw playing on TV!  Granted, I was only in pre-school and can’t remember getting excited about any particular player, but I knew dad liked the Yankees, so I figured those must be good.  I was probably the only collector on the planet excited to pull a Steve Balboni.

After our recent card shop visit, my dad couldn’t help but remark on how much the hobby has evolved since his days as a young collector.  He left a comment saying that I should tell the story of him looking up his ’62 Topps set, on the internet, on a phone, in a card shop.  Who ever would’ve thought?  Of course, since I’ve only recently jumped back in to serious collecting, this is the hobby I know.  He, the guy who’s collection is far more valuable than I can ever hope mine will be, is the one with some catching up to do!  I invited my dad to write about his thoughts on the hobby’s growth through the years, so enjoy this special guest entry.

Having collected baseball cards for nearly 50 years it struck me recently how much the hobby and the world has changed.  As I was visiting my son in San Diego we made a point of taking some time to go to a card shop so that I could look for some “commons” for my 1962 Topps collection.  I have my cards cataloged on the Beckett site but it is virtually impossible to print an inventory.  As I was fumbling through several sheets that I did print I asked my son if I could use his iphone to go to the Beckett site.  Of course it worked like a champ… so there I stood looking for 1962 baseball cards using an iphone and the internet.

Why do things have to get so big, so fast, so technically advanced as time goes on?  Card collecting in the 1960s and earlier was as innocent a hobby as there could be.  Topps were the main sets available.  Sure, there were some others, but they were few and far between.  A typical pack of cards cost five cents and came with a flat stick of bubble gum.  I felt like a big shot if I had a quarter or 50 cents… imagine 5 or 10 packs of cards!!  There was no such thing as buying a complete set if memory serves.  I would put the cards in boxes and asked my Mom to please leave them alone (in other words – don’t throw them out….we have all heard those stories).  I would take the doubles (duplicate cards) to school and we would scale them toward a wall… the goal was to get the closest to the wall to win all the others that had fallen short.  The ultimate was to get a “leaner”: a card that ended up leaning upright against the wall.  Many kids also used the cards as noise makers for their bicycles.  This was done by clipping a card to the wheel support so the card laid against the spokes, so as the wheels turned the spokes vibrated the card making sort of a roaring noise (maybe why, to this day, I’d love to have a Harley).  I would bundle my cards by team, neatly wrap a rubber band around them, and store them in a shoe box.   Occasionally I would glue them in to a photo album (bad move – so I learned later).  There were no plastic sheets,  baseball card binders, or protective cases.

Now I said that I would buy 25 or 50 cents worth of cards…at the card shop???  No, there was no such thing.  I went to a corner soda fountain/candy store – Sam’s (no – not Sams Club – that did not exist then) in Bloomfield, New Jersey.  There the box or boxes would be sitting and, much like today, I’d try my luck. Maybe I’d get a Mickey Mantle or a Willie Mays!!  It seemed as though the cards were released by number as the baseball season went on – you would never get card 500 in April nor card 15 in October.  Every now and then my mind would drift and I’d think about having a son of my own some day and getting him interested in the hobby.

As the years went on the hobby grew.  Many card manufacturers came to be.  Many different styles of cards went in and out of vogue.  Baseball cards shops and shows started to appear, and then came along son number one, daughter number one, and son number two.  Son number one is the creator of this blog so I’ll focus on him.  He was really interested in baseball from a very early age, and it was a thrill for me to take him to a ball game.  I think he was about two years old for the first one when we went to Candlestick Park to see the Giants play.  His interest in baseball grew and grew through high school and college and many, many military changes of duty stations.  Then, not too long ago two big things occurred.  First, he established this blog!  I had no idea his card collecting had become a passionate past time, a priceless pursuit.  The second big deal was the news of his first son, my first grandson whom we pray will be joining us in a couple of weeks.  So there I was back in the San Diego card shop, iPhone in hand with my baseball card buddy, savoring the moment. But the card shop – I was amazed to see the quantity of cards and card related action figures, etc… it was simply overwhelming.  I was able to remain focused on my 1962s, though.  I made my picks and as we were about to leave I saw what to me had been a dream as a young collector: a complete set of (2009) Topps cards, which are now safely stowed in the nursery waiting for my Grandson to arrive to join Dad and Grandpa in our “priceless pursuit”.

How will YOU pass the the time?

The baseball season is over for most teams, and one more will join the club after this afternoon’s Tigers-Twins one game playoff.  This undoubtedly – and understandably – leads to a waning interest not only in the sport but baseball card collecting, too.  I’ve noticed a slowdown in posts and entries around the blogosphere over the past couple weeks and got to thinking, what will you do to get through the winter?

This is the first off-season in which I’ve been an active card collector in a long, long time.  In fact, I didn’t re-start collecting until a couple months into the ’09 season, so I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for the few relatively cold months in southern California until baseball kicks back up in March.  I hope all of you continue to blog – I know I surely will – but I’m interested to hear where you’ll be spending your money, what you’ll be collecting, what you’ll be waiting for, etc.

Will you finish off any sets you’d started in the past month or so?

Will you pursue the various update sets yet to release?

Will you hold out for holiday sales from your card shops or online warehouses?  Are there any mega-sales from online warehouses around the holidays?

Will you turn to football and/or basketball cards?

Will you do nothing and start saving for next season?

Cards in the closet

The wife and I are continuing to plow through the new house with our mops, paint brushes, and various other cleaning supplies.  The first fun find was a Brian Giles baseball card under a kitchen cabinet.  This time around, while dusting the closet shelf that’ll contain my “overflow” boxes of cards (random lots I’ve purchases at previous points in time that I don’t particularly feel like organizing), my hand brushed against a whole stack of goodies.

First up, 1990 Fleer #305 Marion Butts:

Kinda neat for a couple reasons.  It’s a Charger, which I’ll go ahead and declare my favorite football team (with the Giants and Saints being close second and third), and also because it says “Butts”.  Heh, that’s gotta be good for at least a little chuckle, right?  We’ve all got a ten year old boy buried deep within us.

Perhaps even cooler is a deck of playing cards from now-defunct Western Airlines.

Not to make myself sound like a total nerd, which I don’t consider myself to be (though I may be biased), but when I was younger I was absolutely obsessed with commercial airlines.  I collected time tables from airports, tracked arrivals whenever we lived near a flight path, and knew pretty much everything about every model of plane.  I still enjoy watching planes fly overheard, and my wife has to drive the car if we’re going anywhere near the airport.  I-5 in San Diego is right next to the runway of San Diego International Airport; I’m amazed I haven’t caused any massive pile-ups yet as planes land directly overheard.  OK, I’m a total nerd.

Anyway…

There’s a date from 1980 written on the box, so these are old.  Very cool.  There was also a deck of cards from Valley View Casino (not that anyone outside of southern California would know what that is) and Chippendales, but I’ll spare you scans of those.  There are still a few more dark recesses we’ve yet to clean, so hopefully we’ll come across another surprise or two in our Labor Day weekend that’ll be filled with manual labor around the house.

Help me scratch my itch…

OK, blogging community, I’ve got another question for ya!

Thanks to the multitude of hobby related blogs, the discovery of a local card shop, and the magic of great deals on boxes over the internet, I’ve become completely addicted (again) to collecting.  And unlike the last time I was into the hobby, about 10 years ago, I now have actual money to spend on stuff that is (debatably) above the absolute bottom of the barrel.  Not too far above the bottom, of course, but I no longer feel relegated to Opening Day or First Edition.  

Of course, now that I’m addicted to baseball cards, I’ve found myself checking out weekly specials on football cards, too.  The only problem with that is that I know nothing about football cards.  I don’t even know if I should purchase any – it seems like a “slippery slope” that has the potential to lead to a grossly disorganized collection.  However, I do follow the NFL (though not as much as MLB or NCAA football), so I kinda feel like giving in to my impulses and picking up a cheaper box of product from 2008.

Translation: I’ve got a little bit of card collecting budget burning a hole in my pocket and a little bit of free time at work  to ponder about such things.  A dangerous combination, to be sure.

I’m leaning on fellow blogger (and reader) Dave – the writer of First and Goal – to steer me in the right direction, but I thought I’d throw the question out there to the rest of the blogosphere:  what should I consider purchasing?  What’s good (and not good)?  I like relics and kinda like autos, so ’08 Bowman and ’08 Topps Rookie Progressions look nice.  Also, retail boxes of 2008 Leaf Rookies and Stars can be had for around $20 a pop and include a relic or auto.  The same can be said for 2008 (football) Heroes, and these last two may be the best way to test the waters just to see if I like it.  I’m open to suggestions for anything else I may be overlooking.

So… where do I begin?  What would YOU buy if you had $30 or so to blow on football cards?  Or should I step back, take a deep breath, and stick to baseball only?  

Riddle update

I decided to stop in the local Toys ‘R Us to check out their card selection for Friday’s big Madden purchase… sparse is an understatement.  There were a couple slightly overpriced blasters and a handful of packs but not much else.  

Even though the blasters were overpriced by a few bucks, what the heck else am I gonna do with the $15?  And I may as well take the free money and purchase the game there.  The two I’ll be choosing between are 2009 Allen & Ginter and 2009 Icons.  I’m actually leaning slightly towards Icons since I’ve already accumulated four or five Ginter relics/autos in trades, and the Icons box has a guaranteed, money-in-the-bank jersey inside.

Plus, I don’t have any of those yet.

They also had blasters of 2009 Upper Deck Series Two (guaranteed jersey) but those are boring, along with 2009 Bowman, however those are long shots for the seven or so dollars I’ll have to spend out of my own pocket.  Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

Randomly random mail with random cards

I seriously hope all of you know of Dave, author of Tribe Cards.  He is the undisputed king of giveaways – and they’re all his own cards.  No donations from card manufacturers, no sponsors covering postage, they’re his cards and shipping is paid for on his dime.  That may not sound like much, but take a look through his site, making sure to view old posts, and you’ll see just how often he gives stuff away.

I’d like to see this guy’s entire collection, because it must border on endless.  In the past year he’s given away tons of cards as “Trick or Treat” packages for Halloween, “12 Days” packages for Christmas, and team packages for no apparent reason.  When he announced the “randomly random” giveaway, I simply HAD to sign up.

I mentioned that I’d take “a pack or two” off his hands, which somehow turned in to seven packs by random roll of the dice.  It amounted to a ridiculous amount of random cards, and in the interest of sanity I’ll stick to showcasing the cards I like best.  “Hits” were inserted randomly, determined by a random roll of the dice.

First up:  ultra rare no name on front error cards!  The ’90 Topps Frank Thomas RC no-name error is worth a ton.  OK, so these may not be exactly the same.  There are clues as to who the player on each card is; the guy on the right is Andres Galaragga.

Rookies!  Some of them still in Team USA jerseys.  You haven’t heard of these guys yet, but you will… if you live in a town with an independent league team.

My all time favorite player, Darryl Strawberry:

Two more cards from the late ’80s and early ’90s.  I used to live in northern Virginia, long before the Nationals existed.  I decided that since my pitching machine league baseball team was the Orioles, I should choose a favorite local guy.  I chose Joe Orsulak… because my name is also Joe.  As for the Mitchell card, when you think of 1987 Topps, you think of this Kevin Mitchell card.

GiGi Edgley?? No idea who this is, but it’s from Donruss Americana… which I’ve read about online.  Yeah.  You gotta admit, this card is more visually appealing than most.

Hockey cards! I can easily trade these to my nephew for other hockey cards.

David Price rookie.  He hasn’t done a whole lot since exploding on to the scene with the Rays, but he’s got plenty of time before the hype will fade.

Shiny chrome cards:

Raffy Palmeiro pitching.  Hil-a-rious!

A couple cards from Upper Deck Artifacts.  I’ve been thinking of picking up a box of these, but after seeing the base cards I think I’ll pass for now.

A card from 2009 Upper Deck.  I’ve got a ton of ’09 First Edition cards, so it’s nice to see what the “real” version looks like.

A couple Yankees:

Steroids have been in the news lately, so the wrestling card is timely, to say the least.  My brother and I broke a box of these when were younger.

I mentioned that hits were randomly inserted, determined by random roll of the dice.  Four of my seven packs had hits, putting Dave’s packs in SPx territory.  The Dontrelle Willis is from Bowman Sterling, an incredibly expensive product.  This card is the ultimate in shiny!  I’ve never heard of Justin Wayne, but the swatch is nice looking.

The last two cards I’ll scan have immediately become two of the more unique relics I own, and thus two of my favorite.  The first is a game used ball which shows part of the MLB logo.  I’ve got a handful of “game used” balls that I obtained in person, but it’s still kinda cool to see it on a card.

And a game used batting glove.  You can feel the leather on the one, which you could generously consider a “patch”… right?  It’s certainly unique, whatever you want to call it.  It’s a bit amusing that it’s a “Slugger’s Choice” card of Neifi Perez.

Dave – you have truly outdone yourself this time!  I encourage everyone to check out Tribe Cards and to make yourself familiar with the guy.  Don’t miss out on his next giveaway!  I’ve gotten lots of other cards in the mail recently, too, but they’ll have to wait a couple days to get posted.  We’re in the process of packing, cleaning, painting, and various other  first-home related activities that have taken a bit of a priority over scanning baseball cards with every ounce of free time I have.