This week was a fun, somewhat unique and interesting one at the shop. We had one of the major players in the auction game in town to see little old us.
Around midweek we had a representative from Heritage Auctions fly in to meet with a local man (and friend of the store) who had, and was ready to sell, a once in a lifetime collection of non-sports related collectibles. I really can’t get into great detail but the collection is so amazing that I actually had to just take a moment and hold some of the nicer items and take pictures for myself because I’ll probably never see them in person again.
When the dust settled, the Heritage representative and our friend struck up a deal and the haul of items was packed up, shipped out and on its way to Dallas. It will be sold over the course of a few upcoming catalogs, most likely this spring, summer and fall.
With as hot as our Gem Mint boxes have become, we are fighting every single day to keep up with the demand and have enough PSA 10 and BGS 9.5 and 10s to fill the always increasing orders. Our once overflowing showcases of Gem Mint cards are now wiped clean.
We spend quite a bit of time each day looking at, shopping for, buying, ordering, receiving, unpacking, repacking and in turn shipping out this homemade product. I joke that we need a full time person just to take care of this process from start to finish. It is really cool to see all of the great cards that come through the door.
Speaking of items that quickly left the shop this week, the new 2022 Prizm WWE pro wrestling product released and was all the rage. On the heels of WrestleMania and being the very first Prizm cards for the iconic pro wrestling organization and its athletes, it made for a incredibly hot product that barely made it to the shelf before it was back out the door.
Whether you consider it a “sport” or not, there’s no denying Wrestlemania was a huge hit in viewership and on social media and that may be playing into it as well.
Somewhat surprisingly, the new Panini Stars and Stripes Baseball was also huge hit for us this week. Offering five hits in a relatively small card overall count will do that from time to time. We sold through our initial allotment and still had a few people stopping in and even texting me to see if we were getting more. Of course we will try but I can’t make any guarantees.
One last interesting release this week was the 2021 Prizm Draft basketball. Yes, we just got a product in that features the rookie cards of players whose rookie season has already come to an end.
We are still waiting on 2021 Prizm Football. With the new release date sheet we got from Panini this week, it looks as though 2021 Prizm Football will be released the same day as 2022 Prizm Draft football, in mid May, as of right now… I think… possibly. The new release world remains a wild, unpredictable one.
We had received a few emails from a woman asking if we bought sports cards over the past few weeks. The answer is almost always yes. Well, she came in this week and brought with her about 20 completely random sized and shaped boxes of mostly baseball, basketball and football cards, all mixed together. It turns out her husband had passed away a few years back and the cards were just taking up much needed space in the home. I spent about an hour and a half with her just explaining the value of cards, the Junk Era, the process of grading cards, how value its determined and anything else you can imagine in the current sports card market.
Nothing immediately stood out as something the shop could use, but I bought the collection and spend my lunches this week and a little time each evening organizing, sorting and seeing exactly what the heck I had. As I strongly suspected, the cards themselves were nothing too spectacular as far as value is concerned but they were priceless in terms of memories and sentimental value to the man who passed. It was a memorable transaction as she wanted to pass the cards on to someone who would appreciate them, which I most certainly will.
Regardless of the names on the front of the cards or the values attached, I’m honored when family members entrust us to bring cards in for us to view, purchase, care for and offer them to continue bringing joy to others for years to come.
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Shop Talk: Special Shop Visitors, Rated Rookies, Weekend Football
Shop Talk: Card Shops, Card Shows, Card (Spread) Sheets
Shop Talk: Memorial Day Mishap, Contenders Cut, Heavy Metal
Shop Talk: Prizm, Pre Sales and Power Slams
Shop Talk: Supply and Demand Remains a Challenge for Hobby Shops
Shop Talk: Price Barrier Concerns, Restocks and a Young Vintage Card Fan
