Shops with Pre-War in Southern California?

[Fred]

Southern California is kind of a large area. San Diego? Orange County? LA? San Fernando Valley?

[pclpads]

I can only speak to San Diego, which is a vast wasteland for collecting. However, three remaining brick/mortar shops may have promise or leads: All Star Cards in Santee, Center City Sportscards on 6th Ave in SD and CJ's Sportscards in Poway. As for SD based eBayers: Card Merchant in Poway, Sun Diego Collectibles . . . and, if $ is no object, Kit Young.

[jrb97]

I live in Pasadena so LA or OC.

[Comiskey]

How is all star cards in santee? I used to go to CJ's but when they moved from their old shop to their new one, they sold off all of their tobacco cards (bummer). Also, there uses to be a shop in clairemont but that shop shut down a few years back, seems to be a trend with card shops. The best one I had been to was Hollywood card in LA. I have only been there once and they hD a great selection of vintage cards, the only problem was I was with my future wife and she wasn't as into it as I was!

Jeff

[Fred]

Jeff,

Allstar Cards in Santee? Is Jerry still around? That shop had lots of new and shiney stuff. He had a few vintage cards now and then but had no idea what to do with it.

There was a "T3" (the size of a standard Topps card) in the case one day and it was priced like a "real" T3. I looked and started laughing. I told them it wasn't a "real" T3. If memory serves me right he had some stuff from the 50's but not much earlier than that. I did happen to pick up a nice caramel card of Jack Johnson from there a LONG time ago.

[BobbyVCP]

Beverly Hills Card Shop on Robertson always has a large selection of pre-war it is about a couple miles North of the 10 freeway and the owner is Matt.

[uffda51]

Burbank Sportscards has a huge inventory of post-war/current stuff. I bought some 56 Topps there to fill out my set. Very little pre-war last time I checked, which was a few years ago. And what was there was over-priced. Vintage to them is pre-1980. They do a lot of mail order. The owner Rob I've found to be a good guy. His dad? Not a barrel of laughs. Probably not worth a long-distance trip.

[jrb97]

I moved down to LA from the SF Bay Area a couple months ago and it's surprising how few shops there are here. I tried looking online and a lot of them have closed. I think there are more shops in the Bay Area than LA and the Bay Area is a lot smaller. Thanks for the suggestions so far.