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Texas Sportcard Company
FYS
Posts: 194 ✭
Whatever happened to these guys? I was flipping through some old issues of Baseball Cards Magazine and noticed their several page ads. I bought quite a bit of stuff from them at one time.
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<< <i>Whatever happened to these guys? I was flipping through some old issues of Baseball Cards Magazine and noticed their several page ads. I bought quite a bit of stuff from them at one time. >>
Texas Sportcard company were good friends of mine when I lived in the Houston area (they were from nearby Deer Park). At one time they had the world on a string. The owner was originally from Ohio and a BIG Notre Dame fan. At thier peek, the SCD ads were an amazing 17 pages! To make a long story short, thier ads caught up with them (i.e. they would advertise a 1975 Topps baseball set in NM for 499.00 and on the same page thier BUYING ad would have them offering 600.00 for the same set!)
I moved before thier troubles started but I saw a lot of it coming. From what I've heard from people who knew them, the family got used to living a pretty high lifestyle from the card business (esp. the wife) and when the card market started tanking, in order to keep the wife happy, some credit and credit card fraud charges were filed which took them down.
The owner was one of the first people who would take out ads in local papers and set up in hotel rooms over weekends and just buy whatever people would bring in. I used to be fascinated at the stories of trunkloads or satchels full of mint bricks of 1955 Bowmans, complete sets in neatly labeled shoeboxes, and just about any type of cards from tobacco to Topps. The stories alone were worth paying for. Its really a shame because if you had visited the store and had a chance to see the stockroom, it would have been jawdropping. At any time, the owner could have anything from a nm/m 1956 Topps set or a complete t206 set on his desk raedy for pricing amongst the piles and piles of star cards waiting to be priced out for the upcoming ads.....
I moved before thier troubles started but I saw a lot of it coming. From what I've heard from people who knew them, the family got used to living a pretty high lifestyle from the card business (esp. the wife) and when the card market started tanking, in order to keep the wife happy, some credit and credit card fraud charges were filed which took them down.
The owner was one of the first people who would take out ads in local papers and set up in hotel rooms over weekends and just buy whatever people would bring in. I used to be fascinated at the stories of trunkloads or satchels full of mint bricks of 1955 Bowmans, complete sets in neatly labeled shoeboxes, and just about any type of cards from tobacco to Topps. The stories alone were worth paying for. Its really a shame because if you had visited the store and had a chance to see the stockroom, it would have been jawdropping. At any time, the owner could have anything from a nm/m 1956 Topps set or a complete t206 set on his desk raedy for pricing amongst the piles and piles of star cards waiting to be priced out for the upcoming ads.....>>
I live about 45 minutes from Deer Park and visited their place around 1993, maybe 1994 and based on the above story, I must have been there when the business was on a serious downward slide. It was mainly a warehouse for the latest modern stuff and they were liquidating it dirt cheap. I remember buying a few of those Stadium Club Dome sets for $10 each, when only a few months earlier they were selling at shows for $30-35. It was disappointing for me since I was a vintage collector and they had very little in mid-60's to early-70's baseball except for some offgrade stuff (VG-EX).
Later, around 1995 or 1996 they were set up at a local show, and had tons of wax boxes for sale. They had 1981 Topps wax boxes for $35 each, which was dirt cheap even then and I bought two boxes. About 2 weeks later I got around to opening them up and I had real disappointing results with the first box - all commons and only a few really off-centered stars, and then opened the second box and noticed that some of the cards in the middle of the packs had wax stains - which made it clear these packs were searched and resealed. I had similar results with the second box: only a few really off-centered star cards. One the bright side, I bought the boxes to build a set and the commons for the most part were terrific. I made a point of looking for them at the next local show to confront them about those boxes and never saw them again.
if so he was a lowlife!!!!!
Many yrs ago he sold me a 71 garvey in mint condition, a hr later a dealer spotted it & told me it had colored in borders
ˆ I returned it to him, he gave me a refund
1/2 hr later I see he had it on his table for sale again.
he was bad news not surprised he's out of business
Thanks,
David (LD_Ferg)
1985 Topps Football (starting in psa 8) - #9 - started 05/21/06
Hello everyone, I am John DiGulio’s daughter.
Welcome to the forum! I hope you have as much fun here as we do!
Is Feather your first name ?
I was living in Japan from 1986 to 1992 and I subscribed to all the magazines and used to order sets and stuff from some folks called "Richmond News" and they had quick service and pretty nice stuff at very good prices. I also used to buy stuff from a guy that had a shop at Coins of Laurel in Laurel, Maryland. I would send him a couple of hundred dollars and he would send back a package of high grade stars and such from the 60s and 70s. It was a good time to collect then.
10 1/2 years of no posts for this thread and it's back. Probably not a record but pretty impressive!
Good old Richmond News....great news stand / shop in Providence, RI which gave me my intro to vending boxes in 1977. I can still remember the feeling of seeing 500 cards all lined up in a tidy little box - 500 freaking cards and no wax to open to get to them!
Hot diggity dawg!
anywho, thanks for the Richmond News mention - brought me back to my childhood.
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And Wayne Miller was the seller but it was earlier than my Japan time, I was in Crete, Greece in 1981-1983 and prior to that I was stationed in Maryland and had a part time job at Coins of Laurel. Wayne had a corner in the shop and introduced me to the 1981 cards from Topps, Fleer and Donruss and also got me into Topps Deckle Edge cards and I believe it was Fleer cloth stickers. He was getting big in to the Tobacco cards and I unwisely wasn't buying what he was selling at the time.
Also had a subscription to, I think it was Tuff Stuff and it was loaded with the older cards and I just couldn't get past the cost for some raggedy looking old cards. Now I'm a raggedy looking old man I can see the delight in them. Opportunities passed, never to come this way again.
Yeah I thought the daughter had something to say regarding what was said about her father 10+ years ago in the thread. I guess not.
Thank you for the welcome above. Not sure how to respond. How’s everyone doing?? Hopefully everyone is healthy and safe with what’s happening in the world at this time.
What happened to Bill Henderson......the King of Commons?
Whatever happened to “the ring man”?
O lawnmowerman, lawnmowerman, wherefore art thou forum lawnmowerman? Why does our forum lawnmowerman stay gone so long?
I want to mention a card business that operated out of southern California in the late 70s to the early-90s- Sports Nostalgia Shop (1979-81) when it became Sports Fan-Attic (1981- c.1993). It was owned by Mark Christensen and in its heyday ran buy/sell ads in the major sports collectibles publications of the time. If you have the first or second edition of the Beckett Price Guide you'll see his ads. He began as a mail order business and later opened a number of stores that sold sports collectibles and fan apparel. Does anyone viewing this thread know or remember him?
Am I the only one old enough to remember Bill Henderson? He called himself the King of Commons. I believe he lived in Wisconsin. He had quite a following at shows in mid 80’s.
Bill lived (lives?) about 20 miles from me and I had the same thought a few weeks ago as I wanted to see if he had some cards I needed for a set I am working on. I found absolutely nothing on him with a Google search other than his address and phone number. I believe he used to sell on Beckett but I cannot find any trace of him on their either. Very odd.
I googled him also. Apparently, he is still in business. He sells on Beckett and apparently sets up at major shows. Let me know if you reach out to him.
i remember seeing Bill Hendersons adds in hobby publications
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.