[donmuth]

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.