Tony Reid chronicles the happenings inside Sports Zone, the Central Pennsylvania store where he works.
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It was another great week of new card releases across many major (and minor) sports.
We saw the shiny new and delayed 2022 Topps Stadium Club Chrome Baseball the first time this week. With Shohei Ohtani being the cover athlete the box itself is a great start.
It helps that the product offers one guaranteed on-card autograph per box. Couple that with the amazing Stadium Club photography and the always popular chromium technology used on these beauties and we can just about they will be a big seller for us.
2022-23 Prizm Soccer hobby boxes hit the field for the first time this season. Although we are competitive with the lowest price online (about $250 for a Hobby box), they’ve been a bit of a slow seller as has has pretty much everything soccer in recent months.
2022 Contenders Football hobby boxes made their way to the shop, too. A highly anticipated but very often hit-or-miss product, Contenders was more of a pretender as it performed terribly in the two boxes and change we’ve seen opened so far in store. We didn’t receive the advertised on-card autograph that is apparently guaranteed and the players whose rookie autographs that were pulled were virtual unknowns to us.
We got the newest round of the interesting Jersey Fusion product this week. The new All Sports Series 2 features game used garment pieces from some of the biggest names across the history of all major sports. The relics are added to previously released cards with documentation of when the jersey or relic piece was used in competition. Boxes typically priced at $35-$45 per box. Check out our YouTube channel for a box break that included a triple relic Michael Jordan card among various other superstars.
The new, improved version of Jersey Fusion features a new, sleeker case as well as game used floor cards and some other new attributes.
In preparation for the upcoming Easter holiday, we threw together some gift baskets for with sports collectors in mind. Now, we aren’t exactly arts and craft experts decorators, designers or social media influencers in this space but we have created baskets, boxes and buckets full of sports related products for our young customers to enjoy and I think they turned out pretty well.
Speaking of holidays, a major American holiday happened midweek for many sports fans, that being MLB Opening Day. That is one of the most fun and enjoyable days of my year, being a lifelong baseball fan. To see the game come back around for the current season is always very special. We’ve definitely seen some new baseball products hit the shelves in recent weeks and we’ve also seen an uptick in customers asking for and talking about baseball when they come in the door. One of my favorite things to do in the shop is talk baseball with Mr. Troutman, Todd, Dan and all the other baseball loving customers we have.
I had the weekend off, so my wife and I left town for a weekend getaaway at a relaxing bed and breakfast in the southern part of the state. After some great R&R, we made it back to reality for the start of our hectic work weeks. Hopefully that hour-long massage pays dividends this week.
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