Atlanta card shops?
 

I was in Montgomery, AL this past weekend for a family event and tried to find a local card shop to visit. I struck out, but did finally find a card booth at the Estrabrook flea market/antique mall where I was able to pick up a '66 Palmer rookie ($95), '62 Topps HR leaders (Maris/Mantle/Killebrew/Gentile) ($35), '63 Maris ($10), and a '69 Bench AS ($7) card.

I will be in Atlanta at the end of March and again in late April. Are there any good card shops with a decent selection of vintage (1940s-1970s) baseball available? Any ones with pre-war inventory (mostly looking for T206s, but would consider Goudeys and others too)?

Thanks!

The last time I was in Atlanta and looking for that it was a giant bust.

Atlanta used be a great town for card collecting. Now there's next to nothing. The few shops that are there are open very weird hours and have only shiny stuff.

Finding true vintage (anything prior to the mid sixties) has become nearly impossible at a LCS

True that. I miss the good old days of the 80’s of spending hours of going through endless trays of commons at Atlanta Sports Cards and Dick Schwartz’s various stores. There is a place way out in Loganville called GotBaseballCards that has a lot of vintage but they cater to internet/eBay sales, the last time I went there they pretty much chased me out because they didn’t want to bring out the trays of commons to me so that I could cherry pick through looking for obscure print errors and variations.

A 'The Sky is Falling' summation:

The community card shops have 'run out' of vintage material and local card shows don't have enough vintage tables to even accommodate the members of The Last Supper, and it continues to get worse as the 'refractorization' of the hobby continues unabated.

The only way there's ever going to be a hope of it changing is if the bottom falls out of the shiny market...but even that probably won't lead to more vintage appearing. We're sadly getting closer to an on-line (eBay, auction houses, etc.) or nothing environment for vintage collectors. :eek:

But try not to let it get you down.

card shop
 

I recall a couple in the Marrietta area

I remember one in the Norcross area. Not sure if it is there anymore...

You might be thinking of Atlanta Sports Cards that was on Jimmy Carter Blvd, they have been closed for years. They had a huge inventory.

Came across a Topps 1970 Ryan Cloth there years ago

:eek:

Visited 2 Atlanta area card shops
 

Over the weekend I visited two card shops in the Atlanta area.

First, Champion Sports Cards in the Marietta area. I was greeted by the shopkeeper who was very attentive. The shop is really well organized and must have millions of modern and ultra modern stars, inserts, and autos across all sports all organized by player's last name. They also have a wide selection of team memorabilia, autographed baseballs, auto'd mini helmets, etc. They seemed to have a decent stock of supplies too. They had minimal pre-war cards, but did have a decent selection of 1950s-1970s baseball HOFers both graded and ungraded. I really wanted a PSA 1 1952 Bowman Musial that they had priced at $150. However, when I offered $200 for the Musial, plus the two Ashburns below he checked the comps and declined. So I ended up with just the 1953 Bowman Color of Richie Ashburn in a PSA 5 ($50) and a 1954 Bowman Richie Ashburn in PSA 4 ($15) which I am super happy with. They both look really nice! Overall, I think Champion was a nice shop and I would certainly visit it again.

After Champion, I headed over to Dave's Sports Cards. Dave wasn't there when I arrived, but his assistant was very attentive and helpful as I looked through the display cases. Dave's has a wide variety of non-sport (Star Wars, Pokemon, comics, etc.) and all the major sports. He had maybe 3 display cases of vintage baseball stars... mostly ungraded which I loved. From these showcases I picked out a 1956 Topps Luis Aparicio rookie card that was priced at $20. The card looks in EX or EXMT shape except for a large number 4 stamped on the back. Still a mid-50s HOF RC that presents like a high end card for $20... I'll take it! They also had a few pre-war cards... mostly 1933 Goudeys of which I picked up 3 low condition raw commons. They also had some value boxes of raw 1940s-1970s stars and commons which I searched through. There were a ton in those boxes that I could have bought, but many were unpriced and Dave or one of his helpers would have to look them up. So I passed on those this time around. They also had some display cases of vintage football and basketball. I also saw what I think is Dave's personal Mantle collection which was quite nice. Overall, I thought it was a very nice shop and would visit it again.

All-in-all I spent a fun 2-3 hours in the two stores and came away with a small handful of pickups. When I am in Atlanta next (probably end of April), I will try to visit them both again to see what else I can find. If I get a chance to check out any other shops while I'm there, I will be sure to post it in this thread to help out folks in the future.

Dave's is my LCS. He's a good dude.

He does 1st saturday shows and gives kids a chance to setup tables as dealers for both sportscards and pokemon while he cooks free hotdogs on the grill.

I wish he had even more vintage baseball but it's a solid shop.

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Addresses:
 

Here are the addresses and store hours for the two afore-mentioned Atlanta-area stores:

Champion Sports Cards
1200 Cobb Pkwy N, Ste 200
Mariette, GA 30062
10AM-6:30PM

Davis Sports Cards
900 Mansell Rd.
Roswell, GA 30076
11AM-7PM


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I will check out Dave’s when I get a chance but I will be shocked if he has what I am looking for, thousands of 60’s-70’s Topps commons to cherry pick through. I was in that area a couple of months ago but I didn’t know there was a card shop there.

Cliff, for what you're looking for, you should head over to this place:

GotBaseballCards - J&J's Sports SuperStore
(770) 736-9998

https://g.co/kgs/3qtHqS

They have 50s and 60s commons to sort thru. Bigger store, Joe does a lot of shows but it's a real pain for me to drive over there from where I live.

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I went to their store several times when they were in Snellville and spent hours going through their huge trays of commons picking out print errors and also assembling a high grade 1976 set minus the star cards, but the last time I went they had moved down the street to a much smaller store and they refused to bring out the trays of commons for me to look through and pretty much chased me off. In 2020 I happened to be in Loganville and spotted their new store but that was right in the middle of the virus outbreak and I knew they wouldn't even let me in the door. It looked like a much larger building than they had before so they might be more willing to bring out the trays for me to look at or they might even have some out for customers to go through. Loganville is so far from Atlanta and I am rarely out that way but I will make a special trip on a rainy day when I get a chance. Thank you for the suggestion.

It was a perfect rainy day so I went out to Loganville, they didn't have any of what I was specifically looking for but that was no big surprise, miscut cards from the 1966 Topps 4th and 6th Series and 1969 Topps 3rd Series, but I did find a few cards I couldn't pass up, a 1968 Milton Bradley Yellow Team Casey Cox, a 1969 Paul Popovich with blown out stats, and some cool 1977 Topps print defects. He has six huge boxes of 1977 Topps so I might just do the set the old fashioned way by handpicking each card.