With over 640,000 residents, one would think that a full-time sports card shop would exist somewhere in El Paso, Texas.
Apparently that wasn’t the case for several years.
Never at the top of the collecting hotbed list, the city still boasted three stores in the early 1990s. That number dwindled and in 1998, Joe Saldivar closed his shop after eBay and overwhelmed customers cut into his profits.
Now, though, the long-time dealer and owner of J&M Cards feels the time is right to get back into the brick-and-mortar store with his inventory of old and new. Late last year, he got back in the game. Walk-in business–both buying and selling–has been pretty good.
“The things you find are amazing and the things people sell are incredible,” he told the El Paso Times. “It’s like a pawn shop. You never know what people are going to bring in, that’s the interesting part about it.”
Saldivar has his family involved and he told the paper he’s trying to bring back a little of the old atmosphere that made the card shop a popular hangout back in the day.
