Whatever happened to these long-time dealers?

[Tere1071]

Forgive my bias in mentioning this dealer as I worked for him for many years is Mark Christensen of Sports Nostalgia Shop/Sports Fan-Attic. Mark was almost 7 feet tall with strawberry blonde hair, so he sttod out in a crowd. You'll see his ads in the very early Beckett Price Guide books, plus his ads also ran in other publications through the late-1980s. At first, Mark focused on his mail order business and he would fly to different conventions with his price list purchasing cards.

In 1979, he opened his first card store in La Habra, CA. In 1981, he began to sell sports apparel and with that came a name change -Sports-Fan Attic. Mark opened several other locations and he did well for about a decade. Unfortunately, he opened a location in a mall in south Orange County which did terribly and he shut the business down, but it was fun while it lasted!

This next dealer would be familiar only to collectors in Southern California, but he took me under his wing as a 14-year-old collector and taught me the hobby. His name was Wes Schleiger and he mostly worked the local monthly shows and conventions in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas. He, too, opened his own store, Wes's Hall of Fame, first in Bellflower and later in the Temecula area. His wife, Dixie, was a constant presence in his second location. Wes passed in 2016, three weeks after the passing of his wife.

Looking back, it was a blessing to have worked under both of these gentlemen.

Phil aka Tere1071

Complete sets: 1953 Bowman Color and Topps Baseball 1970-1975

Working to complete lower grade 1968 and 1969 Topps Baseball sets