The Old Brick and Mortar Card Store
 

I was cruising a neighborhood foreign to me yesterday afternoon and I stumbled across a sportscard store...against my better judgment I went in to see if they had any vintage.

Amongst the mix of mostly shiny stuff...there were a few hundred cards from the 50's-80's...and then I spotted a small handful of vintage...practically hidden...there were:

-1 t201 common in g...for $150
-1 t202 common in g for $200
-1 T212 Obak common in g ...for $80

I asked one of the guys if they had any more vintage...and the response was how the 2 guys that used to bring it in have since stopped and that they need to more actively seek it out and that I should check back soon because they buy like no other!

IT's funny how when you usually see vintage at these B & M stores(if u see any at all)...the prices are stratospheric!!!!!

It's as if these guys(owners) are in denial that the internet even exists?!?!

as they pick up their rotary phone to answer a call......

I have not walked into a brick and mortar card store in years. To at least a certain extent, though, I get the fact that a brick and mortar store can't compete with prices on eBay. But the delusion of many eBay sellers seems even more far-fetched in some cases.

This eBay listing caught my attention earlier. The exact same card sold for $1,553 last month at Heritage. Current eBay BIN price? $5,799 or best offer. I am a Phillies fan, so I know that Sealtest stickers are pretty hard to come by, but even half price of that BIN seems pretty far-fetched, IMO. We have all seen eBay listings that have been on the site for years and will never sell.

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleN...05&lotNo=42017

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1949-Sealtes...item53f5c801d7

We only have a couple stores here in Louisville. I generally only stop in if I need boxes or plastic sheets. They have no vintage BB nor nonsports. Just new stuff. Both nice guys though. The one has had vintage occasionally and knows it's worth and prices it accordingly. Took some in on consignment and stuck it up on ebay. I would never bid on anything they do because I know they have had people shill in the past.

I went into a nice coin and card shop in Williamsburg VA....it was a little high, but consistent...there were a couple of good buys, just not on stuff I was collecting. We had a great conversation and I bought a $50 card I should have probably paid a little less for. He told me that next time he'd rather me bring some cards in to trade...and I completely believe him.

I also go into a B&M store everytime i am in Huntington...have gotten a couple of good buys over the years.

there are 2 card shops by me...i have no clue how they stay in business. one at least has the good sense to sell pok-e-mon cards.

i have to assume they also list their stock on ebay...

No card shops near me in Mass (as far as I know). But there's an antique/consignment shop in Buzzard's Bay, MA and I'm amazed at how optimistic people are on prices. Nothing vintage, but cards from the mid '80's listed for ridiculously high prices that have been sitting in there for literally years. I can't imagine what the monthly fee must be for a table ($5? $10?) as nothing ever sells.

It never hurts to look
 

Visited 2 shops on my recent road trip.

Both owners were willing to chat.

Both stayed in business with large framed modern display pieces for affluent mother's and dad's to buy for their kid's bedroom walls. The cards were not their bread and butter.

One guy had a few 50 Bowman FB cards in G/VG condition. I asked him to give me a price on 4 together. He went in the back room to look at the price guide :eek:, came back with a $900 figure (NM), but said he would let me have them for $180. The lot included Graham, Groza and two other minor stars. I passed, but he was very close to what I would pay. When I got home, I still had some money in my pocket. Maybe I should have had 4 cards as well.:(

The other guy says occasionally he gets old stuff in. He said he will email me when that happens. When I said prewar only, he said which war.:D

There's one fairly close to me in Tewksbury Mass.

At first glance it's not much of a card store, they have lots of stuff like pennants, posters, all kinds of souvenir stuff. And a decent selection of modern cards. They also do some vintage, mostly postwar Redsox. They sometimes have prewar. They have at least one buyer for T206s whenever I'm there they show me the ones they have for him. Priced a bit high, but not crazy.

They also sell pokemon and that sort of stuff, as well as a few kid favorite gag items. I got my nephew a pair of "crazy eye" glasses:D (Kid size glasses with bloodshot eyeballs mounted on slinkys if you've never sen them)

They also do a lot of internet selling, and were ahead of many places doing that. When Curtis Martin went to the Jets they packed up the whole inventory of his cards and sold them onlline to a dealer in NY in under 24 hrs. They got rid of what would become dead inventory and the NY guy had a nice selection well ahead of the other shops around him. A win for everyone.

Steve B

Here in Northern VA, we have the modern equivalent of a card store in Blowout Cards' retail operation. No or very little amount of singles of any kind, tons of wax, and supplies. (Disclosure: I'll buy a box of Heritage, not going to lie.)

That said, at least we also get the Dulles show a few times a year, so, definitely not complaining. Already have my supply shopping list ready to go for April 5-7.

I've looked at prewar at Dulles before and haven't bought, but, maybe will keep my eyes open for some deals this year.

Two shops near me that have each been in business nearly 30 years: Sports Collectibles of Houston and Houston Sports Connection.

Sports Collectibles of Houston has some nice 50's and '60s stuff, but no pre-war. They cater to the set builder. They have boxes and boxes of commons from the '50s on up.

Houston Sports Connection is the same, but he does have some pre-war. However, he doesn't display it in the cases, he keeps it put up. You have to ask to see it and I get the feeling that he just really doesn't want to sell it. He'll pull it out when I'm there to show me any new acquisitions, but I think he really wants to keep it for himself although he might part with something if the price were right. He doesn't need the money - there are plenty of other things in the store from which he generates revenue.

There's nothing of quality here in Vegas either. I did have a good experience back in Ohio where I came from though. It was around 1997-1998 when I stumbled upon a small brick and mortar on the south side of Youngstown. He's the one who actually got me into vintage. He used to always have a bunch of T206's and E cards available amongst a buffet of the new "shiny stuff". I remember buying a good amount off of him for great prices back then. He also was the first one to turn me on to Ebay back in 1998. He told me that used to sell some of his stock on this auction website called "Ebay".....I quickly went home to discover a whole new world of online vintage cards, lol.

About three years later I sent all the vintage that I had bought off of him to PSA to be graded.....then flipped em on Ebay for a nice profit when vintage cards took off in the very early 2000's. I've been hooked ever since ;)

I used to make a habit out of checking for bb card stores when I'd visit a new city...back in 92-93' while visiting cleveland Ohio interviewing for dental college...I found a store...maybe on euclid ave that had tons of vintage. I ended up buying a nice red hindu t206 and 2 e97 b/w's...ahhhhh...those were the days...even though I overpaid for them all!!!!!!

When I used to have a brick and mortar store, I would keep a few T206s and 33 Goudeys prominently displayed in a display case. I priced them really high on purpose with no real intention on selling them. They were great conversation pieces.

Have a local guy who has a case in one of the antique co-ops in town. Same deal. He puts out a couple of T206 commons in fair condition for $100 bucks each. They are not really for sale. What a tease.

I go to that shop a few times a year when I'm down in Williamsburg or passing through. I too have overpaid for a card there, but the owner, Guy, is nice and has some good stories. Last time I was in, he wanted to buy my T206 set and went on to tell me a story about when he was bidding on a T206 Wagner.

I went to college in Williamsburg and have stopped in that shop when in town for Homecoming, reunion events and the like. It is a nice place to visit. I expect to pay more there as I know what it is to try to operate a small retail business with rent, insurance and other overhead.

pricing
 

When I go into a shop and see a common beater T206 priced at one hundred bucks I figure that the rest of the inventory will be overpriced so I usually leave without asking about anything else. Sounds like a poor strategy to me.

If it was in the case at a reasonable price I would take a serious look at the rest of the inventory and I would probably spend some money.

Same thing with card shows. I take a quick look at the dealers cases and if things are overpriced I move on quickly.

Rick

If I ever go into Sports Card stores when I'm traveling, their inventory, prices, product placement of vintage cards always cracks me up. It's always EXACTLY like peter says.

It's like they put care into exactly which mundane vintage cards they have chosen to put in the bottom back shelf - a vg t206 in a screw down, maybe a panel from a t202, possibly a strip card and of course a Goudey 4 in 1 with no HOFers.

it's almost like their showcase was set up by a set designer for a tv show or something. Out of central casting - all these card shops vintage inventory seem exactly the same! Cracks me up.

A couple of years ago I went to a shop about a mile off the strip in what appeared to be the Chinatown area of LV; they had some decent stuff. I ended up with a Joe Louis item I'd been looking for.

There's an antique store here in town that has a fake T206 Wagner, appropriately labelled, with a $50.00 price tag on it. I saw it, and didn't even bother to look at what else he had figuring it was similarly overpriced.

100% agree Rick. I'm the exact same way, as I have very little tolerance and patience for people who obviously think more highly of their cards and what they think they're worth than everybody else in the market. They should just save themselves and everybody else's time and just keep the damn card, don't even put it out for sale if you have no intention of being competitive in your asking price. Unless you have a VERY rare and low population card that everybody wants, you better keep your prices competitive. I wish everybody in this hobby shared the same mentality. Many card prices would be much lower and some of these jackass shysters would be out of business, and they could take their little cards with them

It's the very reason I don't even entertain card shop, online card dealers or certain ebay prices anymore. It's gotten to be a complete joke and a major black eye for the hobby these days. I sure do miss the simpler times of collecting.

There are only a couple of real stores in my area. One has been around forever and I can't figure how or why. What little 50's stuff they have is overgraded and overpriced. Their prices on new boxes are even high.
The other guy is nice enough and has some vintage at ok prices, but if I go there once every 6 months, he has the same vintage inventory.
Over in Middlesex Boro, there was a store with the largest inventory I think I've ever seen. His prices were bizarre- the best was an SGC 50 1940 Playball common for 125.00! The storefront was empty the last time I drove by. Love to know where all those cards went...

Tom, is this one of the antique shops in Somerville?

Judson, I think I know the store you were talking about. The changed names for like a month or two before closing the door. I was only in once before they shut down, but was actually really impressed with the inventory.

Dj

stores
 

I used to always visit two well stocked vintage stores in CHI area - Graffs on Miwk Ave and Zekes...both closed a few yrs ago and went the way on internet.
And in NJ..I see a place around Woodbridge NJ - Rookes and Stars.. just closed a few weeks ago..

I was up in the mountains of NC a couple weeks ago and we stumbled on this tiny shop. I was expecting tons of newer stuff, but he did have a bunch of '80's uncut sheets and I picked up a couple '85 Topps Puckett / Clemens / Mcgwire sheets for $10 a pop. They're not worth a ton, but still pretty fun to have. You could tell the old guy was so excited to see anyone and make a couple bucks.

Hangman62 - Rookies and Stars was the second shop I referred to. Sorry to see him go under, but not terribly surprised. He had bought and then sold a second location in Westfield and had a huge theft a few months back. Tough business these days.
And the place on Rte 28 in Middlesex did change hands at the end but didn't last long.

Adam
 

Hi Adam, 2-3 years ago there were two shops on the same road about 2 miles off of the strip on the edge of Chinatown. Both had some decent 50's and 60's cards, but they were more interested in purchasing cards for their ebay store. When I was in Las Vegas last year both shops were gone.

My wife and I like to take the bus and spend a lot of time away from the strip. We check out card shops and antique stores, but we haven't had much luck with pre-war cards.

If you use the hotel phone book to look up card shops make sure you call ahead before you make your visit. Most of them are closed. Same thing for antique stores, although there are several decent antique stores within walking distance or a short bus ride from the strip and the prices aren't bad.


Rick

I love going into baseball card shops just to soak in all of that old cardboard, but the business models of virtually every store I enter is just plain ridiculous. As others have noted, there is no doubt that if you went back to the same shop 5 years from now, the same vintage cards you see priced in the display cases will still be there...forsaken.

I'm trying to finish my 1961 set, so I stopped in at a local place. A big store with a ton of inventory, but 90% of it was shiny new stuff, so it took him forever to even find his 61's. Clearly there aren't a lot of people coming in off the street asking to peruse them. After I asked him how much he wanted for a few commons and a way off center high number, he went about his 'pricing policy.' First he checked a Beckett guide and I loudly scoffed. "What?" he said. And I answered him that a Beckett guide doesn't come anywhere close to reality in pricing cards accurately. His response was that he checks that guide first, then some huge annual pricing guide (I didn't get the name of it) and then he goes on ebay to see what each card is selling for. He went on and on about how the guides give you nr. mt. pricing, so you have to know how to raise or lower the price based on condition and what not. I said, "Sure. You have to take everything into account, especially any problems with the card."

Whoa...long story short. Sorry. It took him forever doing his 'research' and finally came back to me with prices that were at or above what's in Beckett and he wouldn't negotiate. His reasoning? Well, on ebay they're 'selling' for these prices. Again, these cards were all commons (well, one of them was a Yankee). I said, "Are you checking sold listings or just listing price?? Because listing price has no bearing on reality. And the high number is 90/10 o/c both ways." He just gave me a confused look and said, "That's what they're going for. If you don't want them I'll easily sell them to someone else." I chuckled, wished him a good day, and left.

I'm sure, much like the final scene in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' he went and put that box of 61's back in his endless warehouse of vintage card boxes.

B & M Sportscard Stores
 

I almost want to cry when I think of two sportscard stores that used to be in my "neighborhood" in northern New Jersey. One was called North Jersey Sportscards in Fort Lee on Central Road and the other was Danpak on North Washington Avenue in Bergenfield.

North Jersey had an amazing selection of pre-war stuff. Although I wasn't in to it all that much at the time, I remember seeing a very large number of T206s and even Old Judges.

Danpak was mostly newer stuff, but the owner, Dan Schupak, did have some oldies but goodies and I did buy one of my first Old Judges from him - a pretty decent Paul Hines.

Since I worked in Englewood Cliffs (the neighboring town to Fort Lee) and lived in Bergenfield at the time I used to drop in to those two places pretty frequently just to shoot the breeze and usually buy a card or two. Most of my hand-collated 80s and 90s Topps sets came from Danpak and a few of my
T206s, Cracker Jacks and Goudeys came from North Jersey. Both of those places were extremely customer friendly and did a pretty good business because of it.

Norht Jersey is long gone, but Danpak is still in the same space, although he is almost exclusively coins and stamps these days.

A card store in Eatontown, NJ back around 1989-91, had a fake Wagner with a $50,000 price tag. If you picked it up, and flipped it over, he had another tag the said something like "$50,000 for near-mint, this card is vg, so $15"

Apparently someone saw the card, but never saw the back. They broke into his store one night and stole the card. Not 100% sure, but I believe all he lost was that card

Have you ever been to AJ's in Vienna, VA? I worked in that shop when I was 12 years old back in 1983, and my understanding is that it's still there today. I moved from the area in 2004 and haven't been back, but would love to know what became of it. I'm quite sure the owner, Jim, is long gone as he was in his 50's back then and smoke like a carton of cigarettes a day.

I've heard about AJ's, but could never seem to locate it. Where exactly in Vienna is it?

Funny, never heard of AJs and thought "It's Vienna how hard could it be to find it?"

So I loaded up Google Maps and placed my little guy in the 3D mode and sure enough, couldn't find it. Until I started zooming around the view a bit. Took someone's note of "a small little store" and sure enough, found it.

Picture should leave enough area awareness.

http://i.imgur.com/6i5l2CQ.jpg?1

When I sold my 1993 Chevy Cavalier in 2008 (after 200,000 miles), I cleaned out the glove box...it literally had 100s of ripped out yellow book pages. Wherever I visited, I would tear out the baseball card store page, make calls, and visit. Found some great stuff.

Still do it sometimes. In Vegas about six months ago and went to a store about 4 miles off the strip going west on Maryland I think that had some decent vintage and was willing to work on price. Picked up a psa2 t206 crawford batting pose, a '33 goudey, a bunch of early bowman for a decent price. He had a huge zeenut collection that he purchased when pawn stars turned it down. Not sure how much longer the store will be there because he was trying to expand and compete with Blowout Cards and Dave and Adam's to become the west coast dealer in wax. Risky.

Going to be in Colorado in a month and looking forward to ripping out a couple pages from my hotel room's yellow pages!

Joshua

I visit a shop every few months for supplies in the Minneapolis area. Been doing that for 10 years. The owner and his Wife are nice. I check out his 50's and 60's selection but the only time I ever purchased cards was about 5 years ago when he had just purchased a cache of raw 62 BB Highs.

He had multiples of most of the Rookie cards (most above #581) and they were very nice. I picked out the nicest of each and most upgraded my set (which is around NM). A very cherry Twins team card and an awesome #598 (last card) were the highlights. Probably should have purchased them all but chose the best copies. The prices were reasonable, maybe around ex-mt pricing. Got lucky because I was in the store like the next day after he purchased. They were all gone in a few days.

michael...where is the store you frequent in mpls? apple valley?

No Pete. I know the store your thinking about. This one is in Richfield. Uncommon Sportscards, 66th and Penn. Sort of a hole in the wall but I like it for supplies.

thanks michael...i've found a few vintage cards in stillwater at antique mall...occasionally at har mar mall when they have sportscard shows...that's about it!!!!!

I will give a quick shout-out to the owner of one brick-and-mortar store who has a clue about current market value: Randy's Sportscards outside of Quakertown, PA. Although you won't find a lot of pre-war stuff at his shop, Randy is always getting in stuff and he knows how to turn merchandise by setting his prices at or below eBay prices and then working you a deal on top of that. Beyond that, he's just a good guy.

Randy sets up at the National and a lot of regional card shows so I'm sure he is known to many on this board.

I agree that most card-shop owners are stuck in the pre-internet days (80s) and are just wasting everyone's time with their joke museum prices. Randy is not one of those guys.

Disclosure statement: I am not an employee of Randy's or associated with him in any capacity, other than being a pretty regular customer of his.

Rob

When baseball cards where in their heyday (late 80s / early 90s) we had several break-ins and attempted break-ins. Often the thieves walked away with junk we couldn't care less about, but occasionally they got some good stuff. Fortunately, it was all insured.

Oftentimes customers would ask, "What is your most expensive card?" I cringed a little every time I heard this because it made me wonder if they were "casing the joint".

im going to be 39 years old in april, and I have Never been inside hobby/baseball card store. Just isnt worth it. But an antique shop IMO is different, i like popping in them if i have time.

AJs in Vienna is still there. Jim died about 4-5 years ago. Gary owns it now and it still looks much the same as it did when I first went there in 1994. There's a large inventory that barely turns over. Many of the boxes on the shelves haven't moved in 20 years or more. I stop by about once a month to check the bidboard.

Andy

Easy answer: my credit card :D

I recently drove through my hometown, Leesburg, FL, and saw a card shop. The shop, Not Just Cardboard, sold cards and comics. It was cramped into a shop much too smal for its inventory. Funny thing was that I knew the kid behind the counter because I used to be a camp counselor back when he went to summer camp. There wasn't anything that I collect but they had a good assortment of stuff from the 20s to present at affordable prices. I would recommend the shop.

I am surely glad
 

People have these preconceived notions that all card shops are overpriced. It has afforded me the opportunity to make many many great purchases over my approximately 35 years of collecting cards. (40 years old)

store
 

I travel often for my job..yrs ago when you had many a brick and mortar card shop....you could say the city..and I would tell you the best card shop in the area !.... Apple Valley MN, Gladstone MO,Mechanicsburg PA,Boise ID,... now a days...if your lucky to find a store..its often disappointing to the true vintage collector

RalG

I live about an hour from Leesburg. I will have to check out this store some time.