Seattle area sports card shops (1990s and beyond)
 

I thought this would be a fun topic, as I recently unburied a bunch of business cards I had grabbed and kept. This discussion welcomes other regions and contributions, but I think anyone collecting cards in the PNW in the 90s/00s will probably recognize some or many of these businesses. I think nearly all are gone physically, but a few definitely remain in business, some even in physical form! I know a lot of people have complained that they don't have a good card shop close or it closed. Well, travel back to a time when shops were all over the place, at least in some areas.

A little history on this. i got out of the Navy in 1993 and while going to college, I developed a habit of spending my free time seeking out shops and shows to advance my recently revived collecting passion. Most of those shops were located on the Kitsap Peninsula, where I lived and went to school. When i graduated and got a job, i moved over to the Seattle side of the water and my job initially had me roaming the greater King/Snohomish counties and cold calling. This had me on the road a lot and I scheduled my trips and used my lunch time to check out any card shop i could find close by!

Enjoy and feel free to share some memories of any of the shops you personally knew or visited. Maybe some of these people are still in the business online? Maybe some are even members here?

Gasoline Alley...I have never been there in person, just purchased from them online, but I believe their store is still open for business. Here is their website:

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/

Brian

As far as I know, the only ones still around in brick and mortar form as recently as March (pre-covid) are Market Coins, Kirkland SC, DJ’s, and Gasoline Alley, but there could be more as I don’t venture out of King County for shops often. COMC of course has found a lot of online success, albeit as a platform vs a dealership.

Brown's Cooperstown: They retired a few years back. Nice people

U-Trading Cards - Mike was always one of my favorite people to deal with

Interesting data on the COMC card.

Rich

Card Exchange is still open on 99. Possibly a few others besides those mentioned. A lot were in the middle of the 90s boom and fizzled.

Golden Age Collectibles in Pike Place market was one of my first shops visited. I went back a few years ago and I don't think they had any baseball cards anymore. Was still a neat shop for comics and other non-sports collectibles. if they are gone, that would be sad.

I also just noticed Rain City is Jim Beattie. I used to live about a mile from them when I lived in Bothell/Woodinville area. I assume it is the former pitcher, but not sure. I only went in a time or two and recall not liking it. probably not much to look at and high prices, given they were downtown Woodinville. Maybe I noticed the name at the time, maybe I didn't. I don't recall.

Pacific trading cards
 

Pacific trading cards was a great place to go in the 70’s and early 80’s huge selection of vintage cards then as we know transitioned into producing them.
Who’s on first in Marysville is still there but pretty much just sells gaming cards not sports cards and no vintage anymore.
Rick

I traveled to Seattle on business probably 20 times in the 90's and early 00's and those are the two I remember going to. I recall Brown's being near the Space Needle, maybe in Queen Anne?

City has changed a ton since-I hadn't been for about a dozen years and then was out there 2-3 times a year again beginning in 2016 and it was like another world almost. It's still one of the best food and drink cities in the US though.

Rich,
Mike Livingston had a stroke a few years back. I visited him on one of my last trips to Seattle.He was making some progress, but I do not have a recent update........ Dave.....Pete Brown had a few locations. His last one was over in the Fremont district. There was an armed robbery which really shook him up, and he closed soon after. Pete was a really good asset to the local collecting community, and its too bad he's no longer around....Brian.... I talked with Keith at Gasoline Alley last week and he is doing about the same. He's been dealing with a health issue but sounded great.... I hope to get up there next year. My 32 year streak going up there , usually several times a year, was broken this year, as were several other streaks. I miss seeing the many friends and customers in the Northwest

Me at Hidden Treasures with my paper route money in 1992: It's either $30 for a '69 Topps Oscar Robertson or $100 for Kareem.

I made the wrong decision, but I guess the good news is that I had a lot of fun opening packs.

I had wondered what had happened with Mike. While I was attending UW, I would spend a fair amount of time in his shop between classes. I eventually would sell some things for him on ebay in the early years, before he closed up shop seemingly suddenly. If I recall, he moved out of country initially. It's been a while since I passed that spot on the corner of 50th and Roosevelt, but I believe the building still stands. Do you know if he still has all his stuff or did he pass it along to someone else via sale or other?

I thought Brown's Cooperstown moved from Fremont to the top of Queen Anne.
I could be mixing him up with another shop, as I never had a chance to visit.
one day I did have time, I couldn't find any parking to stop.
I only visited his Fremont shop a few times, but it looked like it would have been a fun place to visit more often.

I was a south end kid back in the 80s and 90s and spent every weekend at the Mid-Way swap meet. I forgot the guy's name, but he had a shop in the indoor section of the swap meet for years. We'd go every weekend to try and find bargains. Anyone else go there?

Wow. I forgot how many shops used to exist. Thanks for sharing.

On a side note, let me ask a question. Many of us non-Seattle-ites (is that a word?) only know the city from movies and the TV show 'Frasier.' If it is as rainy as it seems, how does the humidity affect cards? Coming from New York, the subject of Kellogg's 3-D cards often arises, as the extreme heat and then cold of the seasons makes seemingly every single one of them curl up and crack over time. Does the precipitation up your way kinda screw with cardboard in an unexpected manner??

If your house or place of storage is climate controlled (heat in the winter/AC in the summer), all should be ok.

I was worried about this when I moved from SD to SEA, but it has not been an issue after 15 years. The bigger worry is whether the mail arrives rain-soaked or dry.

Remember Triple C?

Sea
 

wow, thats a cool assembly of business cards, I know Ive been to a couple years back

I moved to Seattle 12 years ago and worried the same thing, but as it turns out, despite the rain, humidity is actually extremely low, if that makes any sense. I grew up in Boston and the humidity there in the summer is infinitely worse. I always wonder about places like Hawaii....if I lived there I probably wouldn’t even bother with paper collectibles.

It sounds like Seattle has a "dry rain". Even so, I suggest never leaving your raw cards laying on the backyard grass overnight.

Brian

I lived in Thailand for 2 years. No one has a dryer - everything is "air dryed." All my clothes smelled like mildew after a month. You know ice-breakers gum with the cooling crystals? They put that stuff in their baby powder. I wouldn't collect paper items there either. Yet some of their biggest collectibles are stamps and currency.

When I go to shows out here in California, the Kellogg's cards from the 70's always look beautiful. No curls or cracks because of the dry climate. I haven't ever actually bought any (big fear of eventual east coast type cracking), but usually ask the sellers where his/her cards came from. Most of the time the answer is that they grabbed 'em out of cereal boxes they opened as a kid, or from a local collection they bought. That gives me hope to maybe start collecting them again. But buying off of ebay will still be very problematic. No matter how nice they look, it's always a ticking time bomb if you don't know whether or not the cards ever spent time in a New Jersey attic during the summertime.

That's cool, showing all of the biz cards. We need more card shops!

Every thread needs a card....

https://luckeycards.com/pd304rucker.jpg