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I remember back in the day (early-mid 90's).. I would always hang out at the local card shops in Santa Barbara, ca (Goleta).. there were 3 of them within a mile range.. two were across the street from each other. They were called Grandslam (been around forever) and Mike's Cardshop (didn't really have a name, but that's what everybody called it). Then a few years later a 3rd store popped up called R&D Sportscards.. It was a husband & wife that opened up after buying from the first two shops for years.. Mike's put Grandslam out of business. Funny, because Mike's cardshop was very small. Only had about 10-15 boxes at any given time. When rent went up, Mike's closed down. Not sure when the other one closed. Bring it up to recent history.. there is only one shop in Santa Barbara & they are trying to sale off their shop. Don't think anybody is going to buy it though... the guy said he sales no basketball, except for a few selected customers that special order.

not to get onto the subject of this thread.. I remember saving my lunch money to buy basketball cards & a few baseball & football once in awhile.. I would hang out in the local cardshops just about every day. Some of the customers would let me pick their packs for them. I used to always pull the Hoops Magic's All-RC's from Shaq's RC year. I almost had the complete set when I was 13. Even pulled two redemption cards for the RC exchange set. Pretty awesome being only 13. I traded the first one for $200 worth of cards. After I found out how much it was worth. At first thought, I didn't think it was worth anything...

I used to see older customers or some of my friends dad's come in & drop anywhere from $20-100 on just packs of cards. No boxes. They would get a few packs of each product & different sports. This way they would get an assortment of different cards & try their luck with different sets. Everybody used to try to complete sets or the insert sets.

Since I started collecting again in 2007, I have yet to see somebody do that. The people that I have met buy boxes or buy boxes/singles online. They do not buy packs. I have bought a few packs, but usually end up buying the entire box instead. As long as the shop owner tells me the hit has not been pulled yet. My favorite LCS, PJ's Sports Cards in Chula Vista, Ca has never lied to me yet.

In today's cardboard industry... it is hard to spend less than $100 on one pack(box) of cards. I know you can get cheaper products, but if you want excitement, you have to spend big to get big hits. To me this has taken the fun out of collecting. It is hard for the younger generation to be interested in collecting today. It costs too much. They are more interested in buying the next IPOD, IPHONE, or IPAD. Don't forget new clothes & shoes. I see more people collect shoes than sports cards. Funny!!

Back in the day you could spend $20 & come out with a couple hundred cards. today, you spend $100+ and come out with 8-50 cards... don't forget 1-2 redemptions...

I am kind of rambling on.. I was thinking about what happend to all the card shops.. was trying to see if I can find any new ones in SOCAL, since I am due for another drive somewhere this week. I've been on vacation since mid-AUG... don't have to work for a few more weeks. Have to use my "leave" days or lose them. The military does not let you go over 90 vacation days or they take them away without paying you for the time.. I usually pick a different spot & go for a drive each week. Take my son with me. He just turned two on the 13th. He loves going for drives...

I was never really fortunate enough to have a card shop close to home, but my dad did have one close to him and there was a trade center that had a show about every 5 weeks. However, I never really paid much attention to any of the other customers since the card shop was more of a comic store (I collected X-Men cards back then) and at the trade center, my mom and I were normally busy selling stuff, I only had about an hour a day to go into the show.

However, I do remember paying attention to the prices of cards. I had kind of started collecting in about 93-94, I would ask my mom for a dollar here and there and would go see what packs I could get. I didn't know much about RC, inserts, etc. I just loved cards and wanted as many as I could get. I remember one person who was never a part of the show, but a permanent vendor, used to sell 1991-92 SkyBox for $0.50 a pack. I loved the design, still one of my favorite sets to this day. But at times, when I'd go into the card show, I'd see packs that were $4.00 and think they were crazy expensive for cards. Since I never bought any of them, I thought they had to look awesome. Then when SPx was about $20 a pack, I thought that would be the most any pack of cards would ever cost...fast forward to 2004.

So I had bought a few packs here and there but lost touch with collecting between girls, high school, sports and then college (moving from MI to GA). When I started working at K-Mart though, there were times when I worked in the Photo area and that's where they kept the cards. I didn't know there was a difference between retail and hobby, so I bought a few blasters of SkyBox Autographics and Upper Deck R-Class. I was amazed I was spending $20 at a time on cards, but I was still naive to collecting. I opened my Beckett.com account, put in all of my cards, and cheated my way to finding the prices. But I hadn't taken part in the forum yet nor the blog...fast forward to 2007.

I had just started dating my wife and when we went shopping one day, I unintentionally went past the cards, I didn't know Wal-Mart sold cards. So I told her about the boxes she had never seen (a meesly 2000 cards at the time) and she told me to grab a box, so I got a blaster of 2007-08 SP. Again, I was still amazed at spending $20 at one time on cards. I started putting my new cards in the system and started seeing that a new version of the site was coming out. I got excited (being a programmer) and kept up with it. When the new site came out, I tried helping everyone with the ins and outs of the site, started getting on the forums quite a bit, and I started learning some things. By this time, I did not know what Ultimate Collection, UD Black, or Exquisite were. I didn't know people bought cards and opened the boxes on YouTube. I didn't know that some people were willing to spend $100 per card ($200 for UD Black, 2 cards; $500+ for Exquisite, 5 cards). I thought people were crazy. Sure, they looked cool, but really, $100 per card. Then I also started finding out that all of the set collectors I had used to see at the card shows were almost extinct. I collect sets, even though I've started cutting that down some to fewer sets, but the only other set collectors I see now a days are normally insert or high end set collectors.

I've been looking at buying boxes lately since I've been able to sell some of my cards (not a lot though, and baseball seems to sell better than basketball) but even still, I have to really think about it. I want to make sure it's a set I'd think about collecting because I don't really want a bunch of singles that nobody else wants. Hopefully I get some PC hits, enough of the set to where I'm better than 75% completed, and then maybe a nice item or two that I can sell to hopefully buy another box or two. I don't think I could ever really buy just a pack of something because of how many cards in the pack I'm almost guaranteed to not need or want, and would have a decently hard time to get rid of. I've started looking at singles online (especially since prices seem to be down) and am thinking of starting to use my sales money for higher end stuff for now (I do prefer quantity over quality, but I want some quality right now).

You don't have to worry about your post being a rant. I'm sure there are some of us here that really do miss the good ol' days. But at the same time, it's really hard to think about how we could mix the good ol' days with the awesome stuff we have today. I have a few Gold Standard cards on the way, and even back in 1993, they'd probably be $20 a card.

As I'm only 19 I can't really comment on how the good ol' days were. I can say that I'm officially done buying cheap packs or boxes from Walmart ad they just don't guve you ANYTHING. In the padt week vie gotten three boxes with 80+ cards in them. Two were gifts luckily. I didn't get a single gu or auto (I've never pulled an auto) out of the around 300 cards total. Just not worth it. I buy singles exclusively as it's SO much cheaper and worth while. As for the taking your kid on long drives and trying to interest him in the hobby, what a great guy. Truly a role model.

I remember when you could spend $20 & come out with a couple hundred cards compared to today when you spend $100+ and come out with 8-50 cards. I do miss those days.

I also miss an auction is Tulsa every Thursday at a shop called Davis Card and Coin. Well when ebay and the internet took off, that auction faded away eventually because it couldn't compete with ebay prices. I used to make $150-$200 selling stuff that I didn't want and then bid on stuff that I wanted the next week with that cash. An "in person" auction was sooooo cool and I miss it, the last one I went to, was just pathetic with the prices and the miminmal inventory.

I can relate to another topic you posted about on another thead as well. I was also on a military mobilization for most of 2004. I missed out on sooooo much LeBron and Wade and Melo pulls. The stuff was too expensive when I returned and I doubt that year of product will ever have low pricing.

I didn't have any cardshops per say where i was living when I started collecting in 1994/95 (Auburn, sydney Australia), just the newsagents (papershops). But there were - at one stage - 3 shops in nearby parramatta - Collector's edge, Dean's Cards and collectables and another one that went through three different owners and names. Back then collector's choice was the cheapest at between AU$1 and AU$1.25 a pack depending on where you went. I used to buy pack after pack until Steve (the guy who owned Collector's Edge) said I'd be better off buying a whole box as a) it would be cheaper and b) I'd get a complete set out of the box (those were the days!). This came after me buying pack after pack of 1994-95 Collector' choice series 2 trying to complete the set and constantly missing out on the Grant Hill RC. I think I had close to three complete series 2 sets minus the grant hill in the end. Ah, the good ol' days.

Speaking of Grant Hill RCs...


i remember a man opening up a card shop when i was about 10 that was literally a block from my house. The first time I spent $5 in there (on a pack of 94-95 Emotion, STILL awesome cards to this day) he actually called my house to make sure it was ok! (Obviously I was from a very small town). I remember pulling a grant hill rookie out of skybox, it was all gold, number GH0, booked for $80 at the time. Should've sold it, books for WAY less now haha. Also pulled the Emotion Ntense MJ there, to this day that might be my favorite pull.

I definitely do miss the old days!

(10-17-2011, 09:46 PM)buckunteer Wrote: [ -> ]Speaking of Grant Hill RCs...


i remember a man opening up a card shop when i was about 10 that was literally a block from my house. The first time I spent $5 in there (on a pack of 94-95 Emotion, STILL awesome cards to this day) he actually called my house to make sure it was ok! (Obviously I was from a very small town). I remember pulling a grant hill rookie out of skybox, it was all gold, number GH0, booked for $80 at the time. Should've sold it, books for WAY less now haha. Also pulled the Emotion Ntense MJ there, to this day that might be my favorite pull.

I definitely do miss the old days!

I have that same card; don't even get me started on Grant Hill. He was my favorite player because his value in the mid-90's was second to Jordan. Grant Hill cards were more valuable than Penny Hardaway...so I started collecting them. Then he got hurt, and hurt again, and again and again. I had the Grant Hill Finest RC valued at over $80, which has been $20-$25 for the past 10 years. I have hundreds of RC's that have taken such a drastic reduction in value, it's kinda sad.