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Page 32 The Antique Shoppe January, 2019
KAYE’S COLLECTOR CORNER
By Mike Kaye
Baseball Card Shows
Back in the Day
As a teen living in the 90s, I wasn’t your
average kid that had friends and hung out;
I was a baseball card dealer. I would setup
shop by renting a table at the local malls
during their monthly baseball card show
events. The mall shows back then were crowded, because Internet
wasn’t a thing, so collectors would travel to find the missing cards
they needed in order to be able to put together sets or find the
latest and greatest cards of rookies during the draft.
Some of you may recall the premiere edition of 1989
Upperdeck Baseball which featured card #1, the Ken Griffey
Jr. Rookie card. The guide listed it at $13 but dealers were
already asking $21 for it. I didn’t have any cards of that
caliber to offer to customers; after all I was just getting
my feet wet as a baseball card dealer.
I was the youngest guy to set up at the shows so
I’d get dirty looks from the other dealers; perhaps
they were intimidated by my presence, or maybe
thought how dare some kid intrude my territory and impede
on my profits? I had to establish myself, these dealers could buy
direct from Topps and Fleer, I was just a teen with a meager budget.
They had buying power, I didn’t.
My father knew a carpenter who agreed to
build me two custom baseball card display
cases for $50 a piece. They came out amazing,
wood frames with black felt and glass that
would raise and lower. I needed inventory and
had none, so I used my own card collection to
fill the cases. At first I put high prices on my
cards because I didn’t want to sell them, but
then thought better, and put reasonable pricing
in order to make actual sales. I made sure to
note prices on each card, because to this day, I
find it annoying when items for sale don’t have
prices clearly marked forcing customers to ask. Late 80s Series 1-3 Big Baseball cards $1-$2 per pack in price guide value or you get an additional
My first couple shows, customers passed
my table and would buy packs from dealers;
I needed to step up my game. I stopped sitting and
stood to grab their attention. I began chatting to keep
them near my table. I’d discuss the latest Draft picks
and recent televised games to engage their attention. It
wasn’t enough to get them buying. A few people would
show up to sell cards and I was game, but most of them
wanted top dollar and there was no room for me to flip
them for profit. At one show in Hollywood, Florida, at
the Hollywood Mall, I found a dealer who would open
the latest packs looking for the “money cards”. I offered
to buy every other card he didn’t want and he agreed,
so I sank about a hundred bucks a show into the latest
cards from his packs and I now had “new inventory” of
current cards. I was moving in the right direction but
still had work to do.
At each show the event coordinator would walk by to
collect the table fees. He charged $150 a show for a six-
foot table. There were times I’d look in my till and panic
as he approached to collect the dues, he’d ask, “Do you
want me to come back?” and I’d nod with some relief,
buying me time but not certain how I’d come up with
Shown: “Packs from the late 80s to early 90s” $1 - $3 per pack with the value hinging
on the chances of finding one of the more popular Rookies at the time in the set, such
as Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds or Ken Griffey, Jr.
the bread. I began thinking outside the box with creative ways to raise sales.
I realized I had thousands of common cards from my own collection, which
I was bringing to shows to have inventory. They were not moving and were too
heavy to keep carrying back and forth, so I began thinking of what to do with
them. It didn’t make sense to lug around boxes that took up table space and
weren’t selling more than a few dollars worth per show.
I looked at my table space and thought, how can I improve the pricey real
estate on this table. The common card boxes had to go. The two wood cases
were nicely lit and would draw in the customers but what about the
rest of the table? I thought of designing “circus games” with the
remaining space at my table, but what kind of games?
The Marlins were a new baseball team in my
hometown so I took a Styrofoam cooler, glued
the lid, flipped it over and cut a hole in the
bottom. I then took some Fleer team stickers
I couldn’t give away, and put the team sticker
cards in the Styrofoam container. I had every
team except the Marlins, since they didn’t exist
when those stickers were made. I wrote “Marlins”
on a blank card and included it in the container. I
began announcing, “Find the Marlin”. Customers
would approach and for a dollar they would dig their arm
into the container, then pull out a team card. Not finding
the Marlin meant they get a mystery envelope containing
baseball cards. I began filling envelopes with a combo of
common cards, minor star cards, HOFs and Rookies, making
certain the total value of the cards would add up to a dollar or
more when verified through the current Beckett Price Guide. My
plan was working to remove the excess card clutter from the table.
I was selling hundreds of the envelopes
to customers who expressed how happy they
were with the envelope contents. One day a
customer said, “There’s not a dollar worth of
cards here!” I went through the price guide
with him, one card at a time and the cards
added up to $1.50. Another customer said,
“This is gambling!” I asked him if Topps or
Fleer guarantee that you’ll receive your value
in cards based on the pack price. He saw my
point. I further explained that my envelopes
guarantee your dollar investment is returned
envelope or money back. The game was going
well so I brainstormed to make more games.
I bought a bin and began selling mystery envelopes
with the grand prize being a $50 Michael Jordan card.
Show after show I began selling envelops from the bin
along with having people dig into the container for a
buck to find the Marlin. I was averaging 164 envelope
sales a show, which covered the table cost. I was
competing with dealers twice my age and some still had
resentment.
One dealer didn’t trust me that the Marlins card was
inside the container, so he began to dig through without
asking. He went through about twenty stickers, assuming
his suspicions were right, and then he suddenly pulled
the Marlins card and didn’t know where to hide his face.
Continued >
“large collection of loose Baseball cards and sets” The drug
enhancing era of the 80s really did a number on the card in-
dustry, making the majority of commons worth mere pennies
a piece, and the star players who used drug enhancers such as
Roger Clemens or Mark McGuire saw not just their card values
drop but the overall collector desirability as well.