Tony Reid chronicles the happenings inside Sports Zone, the Central Pennsylvania store where he works.
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It was a sports card heavy week at the shop, which as you know by now, is my favorite kind of week.
We got a ton of restocks, new releases, and all kinds of cards to fill our shelves. We recently did box breaks on 2022 Bowman Inception Baseball (gorgeous product), 2022 Phoenix Football (really nice), a product that’s been out for a few months and the new Wild Card Matte Basketball (hot trash) and a few others that we’ll have in our Brief Box Breaks segment on Sports Collectors Daily.
In and Out and In Again
We had a customer who called and eventually came in early in the week looking to sell some cards. Apparently, he’s in a lot of breaks with some being pretty high end and he’s looking to get rid or unload many of the cards he’s pulled. We made a deal with him early on and he then left with his significant other and friend who accompanied him in the store. We were somewhat busy at the time and were attending to other customers at the time.
At one point, I saw two of the nicer cards our seller had brought in just sitting on our counter: a nice National Treasures RPA of Justin Fields and a Kaboom Insert of Lamar Jackson. I was pretty sure they weren’t donations.
It turns out our shop’s owner had been discussing those with the young man who apparently turned his attention elsewhere and then left so I put them aside. Within a few minutes the customer called asking if he had left the cards in the shop. Of course, I said yes and I kept them in safe keeping until he returned. When he did stop back, he drastically dropped the asking prices on those cards and I guess without his significant other in tow, he was more willing and able to make a deal, so we actually ended up buying the Fields. At Sports Zone Toys & Comics you have our word that no card will be left behind.
Vintage Heaven
My cousin Dave who’s been involved in the sports card hobby/business for as long as I can remember, called to say he had “stepped in it.” No, he wasn’t referring to an unfortunate mess left by a dog. It was his way of telling us he had been lucky enough to buy a collection from an older gentleman who had collected and subsequently stored his football and baseball cards from the late 1950s and 1960s in a closet since, well, the 60s.
Dave brought them in just as he’d gotten them from the seller–in a few old shoe and cigar boxes–raw and beautiful.
There were hundreds.
Initially Dave sent me pictures but later in the week he brought many of the better cards in the shop and many are stunners. It was pretty clear none of these ever came near bike spokes or flipping contests that were popular at the time.
There were a bunch of Hall of Famers.
I managed to get a few cards for my own PC and Dave used the shop’s submission service to send several off for grading. The rest will be sold in “raw” form.
He says he “stepped in it” but, in all honesty, there’s a certain skill set, talent and ability to be able to find these great collections, have the knowledge to thoroughly explore them, close the deal and then move the cards to make a worthwhile profit if you’re in the business of selling.
Speaking of PSA grading, we are in full swing, sending multiple submissions each week through the bulk service offered by the company. We are waiting for our first few submissions to make their way back to the stop as we are eagerly anticipating the grades they could garner.
MVP Buyback Update
The Topps Chrome MVP Buyback redemption program has been hit or miss for us but we had a few collectors stop by later in the week to drop off a number of Goldschmidt and Judge base cards.
A few of the folks actually redeemed them for the new 2022 Topps Chrome Sonic Baseball line. It’s a cool program that will be continuing in 2023. We were excited to see how it shapes up over the next few months and what cards will be next to make the special short list of redeemers.
I was off this weekend but will be back Monday to see what the next week brings and we’ll check in again when it’s over.
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