Seattle area sports card shops (1990's and beyond)
mrmopar
Posts: 1,032 ✭✭✭✭
I thought this would be a fun topic, as I recently unburied a bunch of business cards I had grabbed and kept. This discussion welcomes other regions and contributions, but I think anyone collecting cards in the PNW in the 90s/00s will probably recognize some or many of these businesses. I think nearly all are gone physically, but a few definitely remain in business, some even in physical form! I know a lot of people have complained that they don't have a good card shop close or it closed. Well, travel back to a time when shops were all over the place, at least in some areas.
A little history on this. i got out of the Navy in 1993 and while going to college, I developed a habit of spending my free time seeking out shops and shows to advance my recently revived collecting passion. Most of those shops were located on the Kitsap Peninsula, where I lived and went to school. When i graduated and got a job, i moved over to the Seattle side of the water and my job initially had me roaming the greater King/Snohomish counties and cold calling. This had me on the road a lot and I scheduled my trips and used my lunch time to check out any card shop i could find close by!
Enjoy and feel free to share some memories of any of the shops you personally knew or visited. Maybe some of these people are still in the business online? Maybe some are even members here?
Comments
Card Exchange is still there. I was just there the other day
thats awesome. I love the history of retail. I remember back in the early 90's, my little neck of the woods had 12 shops if i remember correctly. it was a crazy time.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Really cool that you saved these. Back in late 80s we had a couple of shops around me that I knew of plus the semi-local indoor and outdoor flea markets. Relying upon mom and Dad for any transportation left us with 1 walking/bike accessible option. But one indoor flea market option was huge in 88 and had a ton of older wax packs. Not that I got many of them, but would love to spend time looking at all of those packs. For a kid who started in 1987, and having never seen 1985 packs before in my life, it awesome.
Thanks for sharing.
John
We had 4-5 shops where I live back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Think the advent of ebay and so many collectors who were now selling killed off the shops since no overhead nor sitting in a store from 10-6 all day seeing only a couple of people daily except weekends was very appealing.
A bit of an update on Mike Cramer and Pacific Trading Cards - I first bought from him in the 1970s - what a ride!
https://completist.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/mike-cramer-is-alive-and-well/
Gasoline Alley appears to still be in business. Keith is still listed - I'm assuming he's still alive and active
gasolinealleyantiques.com/
Thanks for sharing!
Are there any in CHOP?
Is Market still open in Pikes? I believe that’s where I hit when we were out there a few years ago, picked up a peace$ Ive been carrying ever since.
The only shops I can say for sure are still open from the list are Card Exchange on Aurora, Who's On First, Gasoline Alley and DJ Sportscards. I am guessing Satgg's is still around, but can't confirm that. COMC was not a shop of course, but one of the early guys was doing shows in that time frame and handed the card out at his table to drum up business. A couple others might have been show encounters too. I know Eagle's is on COMC and before he vacated his shop in Kent, I want to say I heard he sold out of his residence. The rest are either definitely gone or I have not been to the location in years and don't know.
As to the CHOP question, I was not aware of any card shops on Capitol Hill, but that is not to say there may not have been one at some point. I usually tried the yellow pages to find them back then, so if they didn't advertise, they could have been missed entirely.
It's also been several years since I ventured down to and inside Pike Place. Someone on another board said they were still open, but didn't mention Golden Age Collectibles. Last time I was there, both were open but GAC no longer had cards.