I always mention how I like to pull the curtain back and offer insight into the daily operations of our little local card shop but this week is a little bit different.
I’ll start by pulling back a curtain but it’s the curtain to a bed in the emergency room of our local hospital.
My daughter had been sick with what we assume was the 24-hour flu at daycare late last week. My wife got sick over the weekend and sure enough by Monday I wasn’t feeling the greatest. My wife and I have been together 15 years and she’s seen me sick exactly two times, so when I sat down on the couch Monday afternoon with bucket in hand she knew it was serious.
I was sitting in our bathroom trying to gather myself and the next thing I know I’m staring at the black and white tiles of our bathroom floor. After a quick physical inventory of myself, I picked my head up off the floor to blood dripping off my face. My first words are ‘I think I lost a tooth!’ as I began to lift my head up there was a little bit of pain in my neck (I didn’t lose a tooth, for the record.) I then realized I landed on my hands, so I didn’t even brace my fall. Apparently, I did a header right onto the bathroom floor. All around not a great scenario for Memorial Day.
My dad and stepmother came down to watch our toddler as my wife drove me to the hospital where they ran a battery of tests including an EKG, CAT scan and bloodwork and, all in all, I’m fine (the picture looks far worse than the situation actually was). We were home by 1:00 AM Tuesday so I took a day off to recoup a bit but I was right back at it Wednesday morning.
So…here’s your slightly delayed version of this week’s Shop Talk (but I hope you’ll accept the above as a pretty decent excuse).
As far as actual store news, with the market softening in certain areas we had to drop prices on a few products. One of the most notable was 2021 Panini Contenders Basketball blasters and hobby boxes. For example, at one point we had to pay so much for blaster boxes they were selling near the $80 mark. We recently had to mark them all the way down to $30 and change before we sold any in store or online.
In this current up and down market, things are changing on a weekly basis. Sometimes the less talked about products tend to catch fire.
One of my best buddies Neil paid me visit at the shop Saturday where he opened a box of Leaf Metal Draft and scored a really nice Trey Lance Rookie Auto numbered to 10.
Metal Draft been a really big hit for us. It has been selling well online and in store. Neil’s box was the second one opened that day and the first was almost as impressive when it surrendered a Travis Etienne rookie auto numbered to just five. This year’s draft class, headed by Trevor Lawrence, is making for an active online market.
By the end of the week we were firing on all cylinders and I was prepping for my daughter’s second birthday party on Sunday, so I will take some much needed R&R and be ready to get back at it Monday morning.
As always, thanks for checking in and I’ll be in touch again soon.
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