After a Monday full of shipping and receiving while the storefront was closed, we were open bright and early Tuesday morning, ready to see our customers as they made their way into the shop. We had no idea how happy we would be to see them.
John Cole has been one of the shop’s most engaged buyers of baseball cards for as long as I can remember. He is a big fan of the Allen & Ginger product. He swings by the store to check out our new arrivals every chance he gets, usually three or four days a week. He generally reaches out to me directly through text to see if we got our shipments in for the day and, more recently, to ask if Ginter had arrived.
Early this week, he also asked about our favorite big league teams. I told him that shop owner Jason is an Atlanta Braves fan, and I sadly, am a long suffering Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
When he stopped in later that week, he bought some A&G, of course, but he also had produced something special for Jason and I. He did special spray paint artwork of both teams’ logos and gave them to each of us as a gift. That was very thoughtful and something Jason and I both appreciated.
John has done really well with Ginter this year, and he brought in one of the most unique cards he’s pulled from the product: a Relics of Legend Minotaur framed mini “event used” piece, numbered to ten copies. Topps had some fun with this one with the back stating “this piece of memorabilia is not from anything at all.” I mean, it’s a mythological character, so what do you expect? It’s quite amusing but also pretty much where we stand with all memorabilia cards at this point. Regardless, this cool card goes for around 300 bucks. Ginter will Ginter, y’all.
Tuesday was another fun in shop card day as our young friend Graiden and his buddy Micah were in. Apparently, the school had an in-service day because we had a lot of kids in store that day. Graiden and Michah were going back and forth through a box of 2023 Mosaic, opening pack by pack.
About five packs in, Micah let out a celebratory yell knowing from the card back that they scored big. He had pulled the case hit, which turned out to be a Patrick Mahomes Micro Mosaic, an incredibly rare SSP, which has been selling for right around a grand. Not a bad day off from school for these young men at Sports Zone.
To my horror, Felix, our fantastic co-worker who I’ve mentioned million times in these pieces, hadn’t had a Saturday off in over a year. Truth be told, he’s more than OK with that but he really needed this weekend off somewhat last minute. After finding this out, I offered to work Saturday for him first of all, because I felt bad and also because it was our Topps Hobby Rip Night, an event which you may have read about in another story here.
With working Saturday and picking up a few extra hours throughout the week, I had a half day on Wednesday. My wife was also off work, so we picked our daughter up from day care a few hours early and surprised her with a trip to the Bloomsburg Fair, which is the largest agriculture fair in the state. It’s also the home of lots of as much fattening food and expensive games of chance you could imagine. All right up my alley.
Izzy he had a wonderful time and even won a few prizes. We got more than our fair share of fair food and had a wonderful off day in Bloomsburg.
On Friday the card craziness continued as our good buddy Colin stopped in with more white four row inventory for us to dig through. He’s one of our go-to guys as far as customers bringing in stuff for us to buy. We added a number of pieces for the store and I bought a few cards myself including a beautiful Tank Bigsby Immaculate RPA with a really spectacular SEC jersey swatch numbered to only 2 copies. I also grabbed one with local flavor a 1 of 1 2019 Certified K.J. Hamler Fabric of the Game with the “G” from the Big Ten logo. 
We spent bits and pieces of the week getting geared up for the Rip Night promotion (more on that next week).
The owner is back at the beach again next week, so we will definitely hold the fort down in his absence. I’ll check back in with everybody then.
Related Stories:
Shop Talk: Packed to the Rafters, Salute to Service Minis, New Boxes to Open and Phillies Tickets I Already Bought
Shop Talk: Talking Shop and Developing Bonds Through Sports, Cards
Shop Talk: Shady Returns, “Missing” Packages, Gem Mint Box Rollout
Shop Talk: Steel Curtain Trophies, Bowman Baseball, Prom Night Photo Ops
Shop Talk: Phillies Fever, Football Figures, Repacks and New Releases
Shop Talk: New Arrivals; Lost and Found; Vintage Time Capsule Walk-In
Shop Talk: Dealing with a Challenging Customer in Need of Cash
Shop Talk: Series 1 Sales, Snowy Situations, Generous Friends, Good Grades, Fun at the Mall Show
