Black Friday and the holiday shopping weekend is almost here and last week was the first week where we really saw a noticeable uptick in online orders and in store traffic ahead of the holidays. We’ve seen many familiar faces and also many that we haven’t seen before.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last but mid week we had a customer come in with football cards for us to take a look at. He had a binder and one of those old school wooden frames/plastic holders filled with football cards. The problem was these cards clearly reeked of cigarette smoke and almost had a film on the few that were actually protected by sleeves and plastics. I leafed through the binders and thumbed through the stack of cards and there really wasn’t much to write home about. Even the few cards that were decent were dinged up pretty well.
Initially, the customer wanted to get an idea of what he had but also wanted to know more details about possibly submitting some cards for grading which we do through CSG now. He was a Randy Moss collector and actually had a nice Randy Moss on-card autograph from 1999 UD Authentics. He was dead set on getting the card graded but as I pulled it out of its crusty case it had damage on a few of the corners, an unidentifiable black speck on the back and, unfortunately, even the autograph was faded a bit.
I wanted to do my best to manage his expectations and let him know that this was not going to come back at a grade that he would probably be expecting considering he told me repeatedly how he owned it from day one and how he got it out of a pack himself and stored it himself. Unfortunately he stored it in a smoke shop.
Of course, he saw a few eBay listings where people were asking a few thousand dollars for this card but as I pulled up the actual sold items it was more in the $400-800 range and obviously less for one in the condition that his was in. He was a little rough and tough but I think by the time we got done talking he was at least somewhat appreciative of my honesty and knowledge on the topic.
He ended up deciding against grading the Moss which is probably for the best. We supplied him with a few new sleeves and toploaders, which really gave a nice facelift to the presentation of some of the cards. Even the beat up Moss looked decent after the change of plastic scenery. As he left he told me he had a big old box of vintage football cards for me to look through but I won’t hold my breath on that.
I take that back. I will hold my breath. If you smoke, for the love of all that is holy, don’t do it around your cards.
As I mentioned, in-store traffic has really increased this week and Saturday was a perfect example of a few people in the holiday spirit already.
Shortly after I opened the doors, a man was in with his son who is celebrating a year free after some serious chemotherapy treatment. They were looking to buy one of our used RC cars. I was alone in store with about five other customers and one of our very regular, very loud customers in my ear. When I say in my ear, I mean literally leaning over the counter in my ear. I was ringing up the customer with the RC truck who had about five different forms of payment from multiple gift cards, more gift cards, more gift cards and eventually cash. It was quite a process.
Well, I got through ringing the customers multiple forms of payment out and as he left I realized that the last payment did not go through. Before I could even get a thought out he was back in the front door with a scratch piece of paper in hand saying that the amount he paid didn’t seem quite right and he had returned to pay the remainder of the balance.
Of course, I thanked him profusely and split the remaining payment in question in half and saved him a few more bucks on the purchase.
He and his son came back again in a few minutes to buy some more items which I offered to pay for for him but they would have none of it. It’s great to see there are still solid, honest people out there that are willing to do what’s right above all else.
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