I was close in maybe 89 or so. Local shop owner had a manager that was considering leaving and I was put in touch by another shop owner.
That manager ended up staying, opened a second location in maybe 93. Second place closed after maybe 2-3 years, and the original spot around maybe 95 or 96.
I was pretty regular at shops near me, and my area had lots of shops a few going back into the 1970's and I had hung out at one a lot, doing some seasonal sorting for a couple years.
For some reason many of the places I went to regularly were comfortable talking business with me.
Sooo many went into it under funded, and as the number of products increased, couldn't keep up financially with carrying nearly every new thing. They got into a bad cycle of buying cases from wholesalers, getting maybe 2 weeks before the next "sure thing" came out and having to find money to buy that. Which ususally meant selling off last weeks stuff at cost or lower.
The ones I liked - I tried to tell them they didn't have to carry everything, especially since so much of it was just surplus after a month or less. Every one of them was too panicked about maybe missing out on the next big thing. I felt bad for them.
The guys I didn't like.... well, they had some fun sales to take advantage of. Not that I had enough money to really do much.
One of the good ones was a small time wholesaler. He closed to get into arcade games and managing a band or something. He had a large stack of 90 donruss for $5 a box. When I was talking to him during the last week, he said he had two more pallets of them in the basement, and there was a liquidator type buyer who would pay $1 a box. If I would go 1.05 a box I could have them all. Fortunately a bulk buy I didn't go for.
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08-15-2025, 04:08 PM
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