In-person retail
I'm always baffled by those of you who post photos from Target, or Walmart, or from drugstores with huge selections of cards. There's nothing like that in San Francisco. Our local Targets don't carry any cards, and the one time I bought a retail pack of 300 "Baseball Cards" at Walgreens this year, it was filled with Donruss and Topps garbage from the junk wax era. What kid is going to get excited about a 1987 Rick Honeycutt or Robby Thompson card in 2020??!?
So that's not working for me. I'm not quite ready to breathe in the recirculating air in the retail stores that have opened just quite yet, either - but I will say that Jim at Lefty's Sports Cards was more than happy to put together a nice batch of cards for me upon request, then mail them to me right away. These stores are barely hanging on right now - if you can support your local card store via mail order, eBay purchases or - if you're feeling brave - by visiting them in person, I think you might wanna do so. And as soon as I decide it's safe to do so, I'll most assuredly be blowing the contents of my wallet at Lefty's again.
I'm always baffled by those of you who post photos from Target, or Walmart, or from drugstores with huge selections of cards. There's nothing like that in San Francisco. Our local Targets don't carry any cards, and the one time I bought a retail pack of 300 "Baseball Cards" at Walgreens this year, it was filled with Donruss and Topps garbage from the junk wax era. What kid is going to get excited about a 1987 Rick Honeycutt or Robby Thompson card in 2020??!?
So that's not working for me. I'm not quite ready to breathe in the recirculating air in the retail stores that have opened just quite yet, either - but I will say that Jim at Lefty's Sports Cards was more than happy to put together a nice batch of cards for me upon request, then mail them to me right away. These stores are barely hanging on right now - if you can support your local card store via mail order, eBay purchases or - if you're feeling brave - by visiting them in person, I think you might wanna do so. And as soon as I decide it's safe to do so, I'll most assuredly be blowing the contents of my wallet at Lefty's again.
CardBarrel
Discovery of the year for me. The place for commons at 15-25 cents a pop. I once placed three orders there, three days in a row (wait, that was, uh, LAST week). Totally addictive. Once you decide you want to collect a player - let's say it's Tsuyoshi Shinjo - and then click, click, click, click - boom, you've now got thirty cards of his on the way to your house. Get that overall order over $25, and shipping is totally free. They generally send things really quickly, too, and communicate well when they need to. No, it's not really the place for collectables - it's the place to build a collection. And keep in mind it's baseball-only if that's your thing (hey, I already know it is).
Discovery of the year for me. The place for commons at 15-25 cents a pop. I once placed three orders there, three days in a row (wait, that was, uh, LAST week). Totally addictive. Once you decide you want to collect a player - let's say it's Tsuyoshi Shinjo - and then click, click, click, click - boom, you've now got thirty cards of his on the way to your house. Get that overall order over $25, and shipping is totally free. They generally send things really quickly, too, and communicate well when they need to. No, it's not really the place for collectables - it's the place to build a collection. And keep in mind it's baseball-only if that's your thing (hey, I already know it is). SportLots
The selection is certainly better than CardBarrel's, and they carry all sports and all manner of cards. It's a compendium of sellers, all in one place - with the caveat that you also have to pay for shipping from each of those individual sellers. Order 30 cards, you may be getting 30 different envelopes, with 30 different postage fees. You can also have the cards shipped to your "SportLots" box - a central repository - then have the envelopes all packed up and shipped to you in one fell swoop. This is what I did the first couple of times I ordered from them, only to find that this method took weeks to get even the first card. Now I'm more carefully vetting the shipping costs from each individual seller; some charge a mere 50 cents for a card or two; others try and charge $6 or something, at which point I cancel that part of the order and go buy the thing from someone else. No card images to look at, though, which means you'll need to cross-reference with some sort of want list or real-time Google search for the card image.
COMC
As far as user experience goes, this one's my favorite. You can see the actual scanned card you'll be buying. Condition and grades are there too, but you can inspect the image of the card itself and see what you think. That said, while I did get an order from them before the pandemic that came right away, Covid-19 really hit these guys for a loop. Orders often take a month and typically even longer to be pulled together and shipped to you - and to their credit, they'll tell you exactly when it will ship, and they now have an "Expedited" shipping option at a higher cost. Commons are not 15 cents; they're usually 80 cents and often more. I feel like when things return to semi-normal again, this will become a well-oiled machine once more, but right now it's for those who don't mind waiting a bit.
As far as user experience goes, this one's my favorite. You can see the actual scanned card you'll be buying. Condition and grades are there too, but you can inspect the image of the card itself and see what you think. That said, while I did get an order from them before the pandemic that came right away, Covid-19 really hit these guys for a loop. Orders often take a month and typically even longer to be pulled together and shipped to you - and to their credit, they'll tell you exactly when it will ship, and they now have an "Expedited" shipping option at a higher cost. Commons are not 15 cents; they're usually 80 cents and often more. I feel like when things return to semi-normal again, this will become a well-oiled machine once more, but right now it's for those who don't mind waiting a bit.
And then there's eBay. It's still a fantastic place to waste a bunch of time and even more money. When I go into one of my collecting-mania modes, I'll visit eBay around 10:30pm and place 5 bids on things I probably don't need, then wake up the next morning and hope I lose at least 3 of the auctions. Yet this is where to find that non-common card you're looking for, or that lot of cards from a player you're collecting, or that team set, and so on. I don't need to tell you about eBay. I've bought a few "mystery lots" here primarily because that's really fun, and also because I like having things around of teams and players I'm not all that interested in, in case someone wants to do a PWE trade with me or something. That's how Adam Jones and this "coin card" you see here ended up in my collection/trade box.
Anyway, because I've spent a fair bit of time in these places during our current global disaster (rapidly becoming less global and more Americanized), I thought I'd enumerate a few thoughts on how I've approached them. I humbly thank you for taking the time to read them.
When my friend lived in Mountain View, I'd go to South Bay Sports Cards at least a few times a year on the way to her house. The Asian guy who works there is really cool. I went to Stevens Creek Sports Cards last week for the first time in over a year. I was impressed with their social distancing policy and they ask you to read the rules before entering the shop. I normally wouldn't go there, but my friend was craving Arby's... which is about 50 yards down the street... and I needed 200ct. boxes... so I bit the bullet.
ReplyDeleteWe have seven retail stores (Targets and Wal-Marts) in the area which all stock cards, but you'll be hard pressed to find new releases in any of them. The "dudes" seem to know when the vendors stock them and they clear out the supply. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI'm addicted to Sportlots. You're right, shipping through the "box option" can take some time, but if you have time it's the way to go.
Sadly, Ebay is where I pick up most of my Vogelbachs. I search the other websites and will purchase from them if I can, but often I have to resort to paying way more than I probably should for a card of the Vogelmonster.
Pretty accurate breakdown from my vantage point! I've certainly been there in terms of a late-night half-awake eBay run haha
ReplyDeleteI'm in Tom's boat - I'm around tons of stores that carry retail but never have it in stock. The phenomenon began aobut a year ago and hasn't let up. Finding anything on the shelves is nothing short of a miracle. This may be the first year ever where I have trouble finding series 2.
ReplyDeleteAt first, it bugged the heck out of me. After some reflection I'm starting to come around to the idea that it's probably a GOOD thing that I'm not throwing away money on unnecessary retail cards. There's lot of joy to be found in hunting singles and building up various PCs.
I'm lucky with my local Target. They always seem to have things right away and, for baseball, carry lots of different sets like Gypsy Queen, Heritage, Archives, Allen & Ginter, and Stadium Club.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I've never heard of CardBarrel. Unlike most collectors, I'm not big into COMC. I just don't like it very much.
ReplyDelete