Sunday, September 28, 2014

Support your LCS and get free stuff

I am a fortunate collector. I know many of you are not lucky enough to have a card shop within a decent driving distance. I can get in my car, and be at my LCS in 10 minutes. In fact, I am lucky enough to have at least 10 card shops in my area. My LCS alone has 6 different locations, and I know of a shop near my work I haven't visited, plus a couple downtown. I think most would be hard pressed to have that many locations less than an hour from their home.

I love my card shop. I know the owner well, and most of the guys behind the counter. I try to stop by at least once every other week. There's always something I can look at, and always something I want need. Brian, Jeff, Chris, Zach and the rest are always good to chat with about sports and even life. I certainly don't spend what others will drop in the shop, but I am a regular customer, and I think they appreciate it.

Other day was a prime example. Stopped by because I needed some team bags. I have cards to ship, so I stopped by to get some. The owner Brian was there, as was someone else shopping. I started digging through a 3 for $10 box of autos and relics. Every so often new stuff shows up, and I look for me as well as for anyone I trade with. While I didn't find anything for you all, I did find this:


Just a relic card, but someone did get Harold to autograph it, so I'll take that for $3.33. Well, I roamed upstairs to see if any new boxes of junk wax came it. Upper Deck for $12? Heck yeah! But alas, no. They did move around the cases upstairs, which is nice. And they set out a couple more boxes of cards I had not dug through before. One of them - jackpot. But we'll get to that in a bit.

As I came back down, Brian comes to me. "Hey Jeff - watch the shop for a couple minutes, would ya? I need to look at this guy's cards." Sure. There was just one other guy in the shop, so I set down what I found and slid a little behind the counter. The other shopper asked about basketball singles, so I walked him upstairs to the one case I know they have. Brian finished up with the guy after maybe 5 minutes, and my employment came to an end.

Well, along with my Baines and my bags, I bought two packs of Bowman Chrome jumbos. Brian, being nice, opened a fresh box for me so I could have max chance at the 5 autos within. In two packs I pulled:


Two autos. One of them being a printing plate. I would have been fine pulling from the other box, but that's Brian. He likes to help his customers. And the big help to me? For just watching the store that five minutes, he let me keep what I found upstairs at no cost. I certainly didn't break his bank, but it was a great gesture to me. He saw how excited I was to find these cards, so I think to him it was maybe 3 bucks or so, but to me, it was the world. My freebies?


I've been working on Kimball 3 years now. When I got a hold of a ton of minis, a lot of the big names were missing, as you see above. I don't check often, but I have never seen the Nolan Ryan cheaper than $5 on ebay. This dozen puts me at 5 cards left to complete the set.

So if you have an LCS, pay it a visit. Get to know the guys behind the counter. At the very worst, you have someone to chat with concerning cards, sports and life. And maybe, you might own the store for
.0009% of a year.

And thanks Paulie. Cya later...

6 comments:

  1. I can only hope to find an LCS half as good as yours one day.

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  2. That is awesome. Nothing left in my area.

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  3. I've been to your LCS and it is the best I've come across. Great selection, two floors, very friendly staff. Makes we want to move north about 130 miles. That was pretty cool that he felt comfortable enough to let you look after the shop.

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  4. You have 10+ card shops in your area? You're a very lucky man.

    P.S. Love those Kimballs!

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  5. I had an LCS like that once upon a time. It closed a couple of years back.

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  6. well i had found that fisk kimball to send your way..... time to put it back in storage! Nice haul of kimball's.... so was there a yogi berra in there? That is the last Kimball I need.

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