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Share your memories about your local card shop from back in the day.
Foo3112
Posts: 1,961
I remember going to the local card shop in my neighborhood. It was called "Americas Past Time". It was a really small store with a really nice set up. Had a few glass counters near the rear with some nice cards in them (Mattingly 84 Donruss) and behind is where the store owner "Phil" usually stood. All the packs/boxes of cards were behind him on shelves. Beckett Baseball Card Monthly was off to the side. Always one available on the counter top for the customers. The store was very clean. Had Rug. Didnt have lots of sports memorabilia at the time, mostly just baseball cards with basketball slowly making its way in too as it was also becoming more popular with card collectors at that time. Then eventually around 92, little by little he started having a wall dedicated to comics because that was the new thing. Of course I jumped on that bandwagon as well and started purchasing comics. It was a neat little store in a very good area. Walking distance from my home. I remember seeing packs of 91 Stadium Club for around $5 and 89 Upperdeck around $3. 92 Donruss were $1 (Diamond Kings were an awesome pull in that year). I can easily remember just going there and spending some of my birthday money in that shop and it was now well worth the memories.
I dont recall exactly when the store closed down but it was defintely after 94. If I were to open up a store today, I think I would pretty much have it identical to that although we all know that all the stores pretty much closed and have turned into ebay stores.
Just felt like being nostalgic
I dont recall exactly when the store closed down but it was defintely after 94. If I were to open up a store today, I think I would pretty much have it identical to that although we all know that all the stores pretty much closed and have turned into ebay stores.
Just felt like being nostalgic
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At one time, during the hobby boom, there was about five different card shops in our town of about 60,000 people. Anyways, my dad would pick me up from bowling on saturday morning, and we would go to all of them. l loved looking at the vintage cards, and of course was enamored with all the new packs (back then it was pretty much, topps, donruss, fleer, score, and upper deck in the late 80's early 90's), and I seemed to want to open about every pack I wanted to get my hands on! Thankfully, my dad was able to teach me about budgeting!
As I went through my teens, all but one of the shops closed and I lost interest in collecting. I have gotten back into it now (I'm now 33), mostly focusing on vintage baseball (50's and 60's) and have just started to get into older wax (I picked up a box of 83, 84, 85 topps from the most recent rip; and its killing me leaving it unopened!) It is somewhat sad, that I wont be able to do with my future son what my dad did with me, but I look forward to sharing all my vintage cards with him, and telling him about the all my experiences collecting, and hopefully, he is as interested in it as I was back in the day. Even if he isnt, I'll always have those memories of going to the local card shops and the monthly card show that I can share with my dad for many years to come.
Look forward to hearing about everyone else's stories!
Jeremy
in the early 90's i discovered a little card shop set up in the back of a local gift shop, in what was a storage room and then converted so it could host a few people at a time and there was enough room for a couple showcases and a cork board hung up on the opposite wall for people to put their cards up for sale.
pretty soon, the place got hot and the gift shop people were getting frustrated with all of the foot traffic going in and out of the back part of the store while paying no mind to the frilly, cute baskets of soaps and bath salts.
the key element to all of this was the emergence of popularity of 1986 Donruss Baseball unopened product and the pursuit of the Rated Rookie card of one Mr. Jose Canseco, for reasons which were quite obvious at the time.
the throngs that frequented the newly discovered hangout were all there for him.
and someone seemingly was always willing to shell out a couple hundred bucks for a freshly pulled Canseco rookie.
time were good. business was booming and attaching itself to the building perception that anything could be bought and sold for profit.
the dealer in the little back room eventually moved up the street to a bigger, better shop with more space, a counter with seating, air conditioning, free parking......oh, it was wonderful.
finally, a real joint to have for our favorite hobby and a great place to hustle down more new stuff.
so, things changed then. Jose spiraled out of control, then downward.
so did the business. a couple years later there was another FOR RENT sign in the window. our hangout was gone, along with the dealer and his uh......reputation.
thanks Jose.
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
Back in the mid 80's, there was a sportscard dealer in Londonderry NH that worked out of his house and garage. After school once and a great while he would open up his garage to us local kids and man did we have a field day. His finished garage was like a card store. Loaded with displays, boxes, cases, memorabilia etc. I can remember getting my first 1985 Topps set around that time, Strawberry RC, Mattingly RC.... those where the days.
As I got a little bit older around 1988, 1989, 1990, I was more into sportscards, my brother was and so was my dad. About twice a month we would set up at the local flea market, which was like a small show. There would be 15-30 different dealers if you will set up. We would bring our best cards, any sets we made, and would always have some wax to sell. A normal day I can remember selling $75-$150 myself. A great day was like $300. I would then take that money and go buy more!!! What a surprise right! Even back then I was trying to make money and learning the process of buying, selling, and negotiating. That's all I've done my whole life. So I love seeing a 20 year old on here trying to do the same.
Finally our local card shop which was in Derry NH, was like a fantasy land. It was a really big store. I can remember buying 50 and 100 count lots of Tod Van Poppel and Ramon Martinez, as well as others like Palmeiro, Dykstra, etc. Those were the days. As I got a little bit older 13,14 we started to here rumors of the owner selling searched boxes and packs, and that was a huge turn off. I started going to another store in Manchester NH, called Collector's Heaven which I think is still there. They were a mecha of a store, litterally several million dollars in inventory. But by the time I was 15, 0r 16 I dropped out of sportscards, and wouldn't pick them back up until 4 years ago.
Great hearing of all these stories....
"Live everyday, don't throw it away"
1) Selling a 68 Ryan to Patricia Kluge (married to John Kluge at the time)
2) Picking up Luke Appling at Charlotte NC airport in my 78 rabbit and taking him to a card show that we were sponsoring. He complained about his knees the whole way (nickname was Old Aches and Pains...classic...and he signed an 8x10 like that for me)
3) Eating at Waffle House with Marv Throneberry prior to a card show.
4) Popular cards of the time: 86 Donruss Canseco, 89 Hoops David Robinson, Billy Ripken FF card, Payne Stewart football card (proset?)
5) Goofing off all day in a card shop and getting paid for it.
I'm your typical Great Card Bubble kid, was 12 years old in 1991. Lived (still living) in a town of 8,000 and had one card shop from about 1989-1995. Small shop of about 400-500 sq. ft. Was a mecca for us kids, we had about a dozen boys my age in our neighborhood and we lived only three blocks away from the Card Shop. We played baseball all day in the summer, then took breaks to go to Kwik Trip for pop and Big League Chew. If we had any money left, onto the Card Shop we went.
The owner had a pretty vast amount of cards, displays, memorabilia and cool sports items. One case contained all the "biggies", an 86 Fleer Jordan rookie, Mantle cards, Reggie Jackson RC, Griffey UD RC, Canseco Donruss RC........it was all there...........and not ever purchased by me of course!! Always loved ripping packs, usually Donruss, Fleer, Score and Topps cause the Upper Deck and Stadium Club were getting ridiculous in price. Always hated when the rich, snotty kids came in and bought about 10 packs of 1990 Leaf or Stadium Club and then proceeded to trade one of their Rickey Henderson, Mattingly and Frank Thomas high dollar RC's before they left
I live in the Midwest, but I was a New York Mets fan as a kid, so I collected Bobby Bonilla hardcore when he went to the Mets. The Card Shop always had a lot of his singles, so I picked one up most the time we went. Also was a big fan of Gooden, Gregg Jefferies (who wasn't?!?!) and Strawberry. I loved vintage cards, too. On a newspaper route budget, the three "big" purchases I remember from our Card Shop were a 1956 Topps Ken Boyer, a 1973 Topps Hank Aaron and a 1973 Topps Carl Yastrzemski (for all you Simpsons fans) "when he had big sideburns".
I probably went to the Card Shop, at least, 3-4 times a week during the summer. It was too easy, most times I didn't have any money and would just stop in to drool over the high-dollar cards. We, too, had the comic book phase come through, but I don't think the owner did too much in that. He did a lot of Magic: The Gathering when that got big. As with most others, the Card Shop "closed shop" when my generation got into High School.
Our town had the highest population of the nearby counties, so we had the area's only card shows at least twice a year. It was always exciting and took up the entire day. We'd always be saving our money to blow it all at the show. I'm thankful we had a Card Shop and card shows during that time because collecting cards was HUGE in our generation. It was a lot of fun and EVERYONE did it.
Great stories from everyone, very cool and enjoyable!!!!!!!!!!
1991 & 1992 Fleer Pro Visions
1952 Topps
Dev Nelson --- tons of vintage in binders. Weekly shopping - buying about $10 worth of vintage 60's....not alot of collectors back then.....was able to get a decent stack of my weekly vintage.
I'd pull out a card and he would have a story of that player. I was big into baseball then (10 y/o) and the Royals were an excellent team.
Nice guy - I believe he did some play by play for Kansas State.
Sad day when he passed.
Boy I miss those days from the late 80s to early 90s when he finally closed shop.
that was so prevalent. only thing I ever bought there was becketts for the most part. He was mean to kids and seemed like he
didn't care about cards at all.. he was a coin guy.
there was another shop I found later in my teens basically right before I got out of collecting..
he was a cool guy and always had $1 boxes filled with rookie cards of bagwell, jeter, arod... stuff like that...
I would buy em and flip.. always made dinner money for me and my girl (now wife)
Every other weekend during baseball season, dad would take my brother and I down to one of those stores. Good times.
<< <i>.........this one place in White Plains NY on Central Ave called Dungeons & Dragons.......... >>
It was called The Dragon's Den.
One good memory I had was being told by the gym teacher to run a "circuit" through town and stopping at the store with my friend who collected baseball cards and buying some packs.
First Cards ever collected - 1978 Topps Football.
Working on a collection of the Top Ten FB Cards of each year from 1957-1987.
-Ethan Allen sportscards? In 1989 or 90, I remember buying a 89 Hoops pack, for 50 cents. He turns around and gets it....puts it on the counter. Who's on top? The David Robinson #138. That was pretty fun, the only time that happened.
-I dabbled in old cards from the 50's, 60's and a little pre war. The best cards I had as a kid, 58 Topps Killebrew, 59 Topps Ernie Banks (almost got signed at a show), 62 Lou Brock rookie and a few others.
-I remember a guy that had a card shop in the back room of this gift store. He was like a stereotypical, Comic Book guy (from the simpsons).
1990 was a pretty fun year. Basketball was really hot. The 1990 Fleer rookie sensations were really hot.
Collecting was GIGANTIC in those years. The equivalent of facebook or twitter today. Baseball was really hot. It seems like all the attention was on baseball rookies.
Greg Jeffries?
Ricky Jordan.
Mark Grace.
Jerome Walton 89 Upper Deck high number?
Dwight Smith.
There were probably 5 or 6 shops near my house between 89 and 91/92. Maybe 10 if you count these half shops, out of a back room.
Did anyone ever set up a pretend card show in their house? I remember setting up a tray table in my room, when I was 12 or 13. And putting a bunch of cards on top...a toys r us griffey, 91 leaf, etc.
-The only downside I can think of to collecting as a kid...fights with friends over money? Or jealousy. I can buy that $70 Joe Morgan rookie, you can't. But overall fun times. Better than being on a computer or watching tv.
MULLINS5,1966CUDA,nam812,nightcrawler,OAKESY25,PowderedH2O,relaxed,RonBurgundy,samsgirl214,shagrotn77,swartz1,slantycouch,Statman,Wabittwax
At 20 cents a pack I would buy 3-4 packs at a time. This was the first set that I actually completed purchasing packs.
Awesome memories of a fun time and a great set.
Any time they would buy or do trades they would always ask the person if they had any Nolan Ryan cards to get ride of. When the strike of 1994 happened I had over 5,000 Cards of him. The only cards I was missing was 1968, 1969 and 1970. I was 18 years old, and cornered the market within a 50 mile radius.
Dave
<< <i>Well I am a bit older than you guys. When I was a kid I would go around my local neighbors and collect coke bottles that I would then take to Fred's Ranch Market about 1/2 mile from my house. I would load up a box I had rigged up on the back of my Schwinn stingray bike and with the change I would get I would pick up packs of cards at the market. My favorites were when they had cello packs with either Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale on the front. This was 1959-1962. I was totally addicted to the gum in the topps wax packs - the smell - the taste, oh my gosh it was heaven on earth. After every little league game I played in those same 3 years I would always come home to a brand new unopened box of topps baseball cards that my mom and dad would have waiting for me!!!!!!!!! Good times >>
This just about mirors my childhood days 59-62 only my folks never bought me any cards.I cut lawns around the neighborhood or get a quarter here and there.I do not remember ever buying more than 5 packs at one time.We also had access to the 1959 Fleer and 60 Fleer cards back in Detroit. My favorite ma and pa stores were Bill & Dorthys across from the play ground and the Polish Crow.Niesners 5 and dime were the only store where you could find cello packs.
The card shop I went to was Adco, the first card shop in the country, and probably the only one about that time. Most certainly the only one in Los Angeles.
It was run by a guy named Goody Goldfadden, who recently passed away.
The drill was that you'd call and make an appointment, and at your time you'd wait outside the door until he let you in. Appointment time was a rough guideline, we once spent 20 minutes in the rain because the previous customer had gone over their 20 minutes.
Once Goody growled at you and let you in, you'd find yourself in a narrow aisle surrounded by floor to ceiling books, magazines and god knows what else, with no order or tidiness. In the corner was a desk (at least it seemed like there would be a desk there, it was piled so high with crap you couldn't see a surface) and you'd huddle over there and tell Goody what you wanted.
I remember getting a '39 Playball Dimaggio for $10 and Greenberg for a buck. Both had the "sample card" overprint on them. '33 Goudey Ruths were $25 and out of my price range, but '60's Koufax's and Musials were what I often came home with, or a minor HOFer from the '50's like Monte Irvin or Early Wynn.
Condition was not an issue in the hobby then and everything in there fell into what we would know call the VG range- sometimes a bit better, often a bit worse. But that wasn't particular to Goody's shop, that was throughout the hobby. It was harder to find stuff and completion was the goal, not condition. You'd go to several annual shows and never see a particular card that could be brought up in quantity in an ebay search now.
Anyway, Goody would give you price and it was take it or leave it. If you were a kid you got the full benefit of his contempt, and if he could he'd sell you a manager card or '61 Fleer if he could, never letting you know it wasn't the mid career example you were looking for. Remember there were no books, guides or websites to impart knowledge, so it was buyer beware. Pretty crappy but a good lesson as you'd learn to know what you were buying.
Eventually my friends and I clued into hobby publications like The Trader Speaks, Sports Collectors News, and a new one called Sports Collectors Digest. We never went back to Adco, but at the annual shows in Anaheim Goody would often be set up or hanging out at another dealers table, and would put down, curse, or ignore any kid that was in earshot. As miserable as he was his wife Esther was the polar opposite, and she'd always try and make up for it by making sure everyone was helped.
I missed the golden age of card shops in the '80's and 90's, but the few I've been to since have generally run by quick buck hustlers that try and make you see how much they know by overhyping stuff that isn't what they say it is, all the time not recognizing some of the rarer items they have underpriced. Good for the occasional big score (as one of my friends found out last year) but generally not worth the 15 minutes to pop in. It's great to hear stories of shops in other places that are run as they should be.
Always looking for Topps Salesman Samples, pre '51 unopened packs, E90-2, E91a, N690 Kalamazoo Bats, and T204 Square Frame Ramly's
Renata Galasso. Only store on a residential street. No order in there. Just walk in and loose cards everywhere. Stacks of cards. I remember going thru each and picking the mintiest.
Alpine Arms. Gunshop on Fort Hamilton Ave next to the Fortway Cinema. Yes it was a Gunshop that had a card store inside opposite the guns.
SportsWorld on 5th Ave was another awesome densely packed cardstore. I remember buying my CCP guides there.
Terry's comics was on like 79th off 5th ave, then merged with C&C cards and moved to 86th street. Awesome store.
Then there were others also in walking distance of my house: Pee Wee's cards on 11th Ave and frank & albert's on 5th ave.
I remember there were two more stores also close by, one right across from Alpine Arms and another off 13th avenue.
They also sold cards at joe torre's sporting goods shop on 13th ave by the post office. It's where we'd get little league uniforms.
Almost forgot also Wonderland on 11th.
All these card shops were in one area of Bklyn; you could walk and hit every one in a few hours. It was heaven growing up there.
>
Successful transactions on the BST boards with rtimmer, coincoins, gerard, tincup, tjm965, MMR, mission16, dirtygoldman, AUandAG, deadmunny, thedutymon, leadoff4, Kid4HOF03, BRI2327, colebear, mcholke, rpcolettrane, rockdjrw, publius, quik, kalinefan, Allen, JackWESQ, CON40, Griffeyfan2430, blue227, Tiggs2012, ndleo, CDsNuts, ve3rules, doh, MurphDawg, tennessebanker, and gene1978.
<< <i>Anyway, Goody would give you price and it was take it or leave it. If you were a kid you got the full benefit of his contempt, and if he could he'd sell you a manager card or '61 Fleer if he could, never letting you know it wasn't the mid career example you were looking for. Remember there were no books, guides or websites to impart knowledge, so it was buyer beware. Pretty crappy but a good lesson as you'd learn to know what you were buying. >>
Mine was HLT&T in the mid 80's. I'm surprised they're still in business -> http://www.hltt.com/
When I ran into some 86 Donruss in a convenience store I was buying cards again since I was taking a break from coins. The local card shop was beside a convenience store in the trailer of a semi truck. The guy who ran the store said the rent was cheap enough and you could buy cards anywhere. No great overhead. There were regulars and we would hang around in the truck trailer on Saturdays. It was great. This was in Dallas, N.C.
Ron
Edit to add that card shop is one of the 3 left.
That is correct. Actually that location was their second location. The first was further down Central Ave closer to Yonkers, just before you came to the Cross County Mall.
The owner was a guy named Fred. It was initially and primarily a comic book store. I grew up in the Bronx, but once I started driving, I started buying my comics from "The Den". Fred was great. He knew I was a big comic collector and always gave me first crack at the new collections that came in. He was also the guy that started to get me back into cards. I resisted until 1986. He was always on top of the market and clued me into who was hot, what product was moving, etc. He was the guy that also told me to save my racks and cellos with stars on top. That they "deserved" a premium. I remember one time I had bought a bunch of stuff. He takes me into the back storage room (which was actually the other half of the store that wasn't used for display space). The shelves were filled with sealed cases of cards and long comic boxes. He had just gotten a case of 85 Donruss wax, and a case of 84 Donruss racks. He wanted to know if I wanted a few boxes. I bought 1 box of the 84 Donruss racks and the top rack had the Mattingly RC showing. Of course I opened it against his protests.
When the store moved to the location in your link, things began to change. Fred had opened another store in Poughepsie and preferred working that location as opposed to the Central Ave store. The new workers were impersonal and the store stopped organizing the inventory. It became a mess.
I believe the store still exists in the Cross County Mall. I haven't been in that area for years, but from 1979- 1989, the Dragons Den was the place for me.
So I assume you know Pat as well, Bob's son? Poor kid. We picked on him to much in the mid 80's.
>
Successful transactions on the BST boards with rtimmer, coincoins, gerard, tincup, tjm965, MMR, mission16, dirtygoldman, AUandAG, deadmunny, thedutymon, leadoff4, Kid4HOF03, BRI2327, colebear, mcholke, rpcolettrane, rockdjrw, publius, quik, kalinefan, Allen, JackWESQ, CON40, Griffeyfan2430, blue227, Tiggs2012, ndleo, CDsNuts, ve3rules, doh, MurphDawg, tennessebanker, and gene1978.
- All Star Cards in the Valley - Sherman Way and White Oak I believe.
- Beverly Hills Baseball Cards on Robertson Blvd, but not quite in BH. (Still their rent must have been out of sight!) I have vivid memories of standing out front of the store hunting for Fernando and Charboneau rookie cards!
- Heidi Ho Comics in Santa Monica.
Of course, before actual card stores we bought cards at local 7-11 and drug stores. Bought a lot of 75 rack packs at the Sav-on Drug Store on Sepulveda at National. That was 75 and 76, if not into 77, as it took a while to get rid of all those "crappy mini cards" that people didn't want.
<< <i>Renata Galasso. Only store on a residential street. No order in there. Just walk in and loose cards everywhere. Stacks of cards. I remember going thru each and picking the mintiest.
>>
Don't know how I ever found out about Renata Galasso but I somehow did. Ended up getting several issues of her "Baseball Hobby Card Report", along with placing several orders with her back when I was about 12. An excellent dealer in all of my transactions with her. If only I'd bought the '84 Fleer Update instead of the '84 Topps Traded when they were both offered for pre-orders at $7.99 a pop. Grrrrrrr.
Tabe