I haven't bought much sealed product lately outside of ePack. . .

After seeing Star Trek Inflexions I've been on a journey to buy some, and I really wanted to support my local card dealer. . .

In the last two weeks I've been to 4 card or comic stores in 3 different cities and a sports card show with the following results: Spoiler Alert -- no Inflexions. . .

Card Shop 1: No non-sport at all. Was familiar with non-sport, carried it a long time ago, but it never sold.

Comic/Card: Had loose 90s Marvel inserts 'in the back' were previously on display, but only sold 2 cards out of the box in 3 years -- the dealer did not offer to go 'in the back' to get and show me the cards.

Card Shop 2: Had 2 different current Star Wars releases, and some 90s junk wax.

Comic Shop: I bought MSTK3 here a few months ago so I was hopeful, but they were selling packs of a 1990s Topps X-Files set and loose singles from a bunch of 80s sets.

Card Show: 1 dealer had a some vintage singles from the 30s-50s. Another had some wax, none of it modern, most of it junk wax from the 90s.

Outside of the Star Wars boxes I didn't see any modern non-sport at all. . . On the plus side everyone had heard of non-sport cards. . . On the downside no one even offered to order any for me.

I also contacted Rittenhouse through their dealer locator, but unfortunately they don't have any direct dealers in my area. I wonder if any distributors have dealer locators. . .

So, if you have a local comic shop/dealer make sure you appreciate it. . .

Jon

As has been mentioned a few times recently on here i think this shows that the manufacturers are making product for the big internet dealers in the main, they know they can sell out to them rather than bother with all the little shops and collectors.

As I think I mentioned before, my card/comic shop closed down years ago with the owner owing me between $400-$500, which he promised to but never paid me back. There was a HUGE building here which did monthly card shows with many dealers, which is now closed and being turned into something else. I used to buy cases, but can no longer afford them. The only cards I've bought in the last four or five years have been sketches and a couple of Twin Peaks and Bombshell promos I just couldn't resist. I also send SASE's to Rittenhouse for their free promos. My rewards points ran out a long time ago, so I don't get those cards anymore either, although I probably have enough empty packs up in my attic to get all the ones I need to catch up if I felt the urge to send them in.

I am very lucky to have a great relationship with a LHS that I have been going to for over 25 years. I'm in a large metro area and at one time, no exaggeration, I could get in my car and hit 10 card/comic stores in one day, plus 1 or 2 weekend shows.

Now I have the one store and I am thankful. He doesn't get everything non-sport, but he gets the main ones. It depends mostly on his distributor. I'd like to say that non-sport cards are big business for him, but its really not. Its gaming cards, sports cards, comics, models, toys and custom memorabilia. He's diversified, as they have to in order to stay in business. If a non-sport title comes in its usually a case or less, sometimes 5 or 6 boxes and when its gone, its gone. There are supposed to be a couple of other customers who are interested in my stuff, but I don't seem to ever run into them. If I want boxes and he can get them, I reserve the titles in advance.

That's how it works now and I would guess that I have fallen off as much as 80% in my card buying from when I found cards in a dozen and more places and could pick up anything laying around. Certainly its a matter of cost with any big titles now, but its also just the fact that you have nowhere to just walk in and binge purchase.

As an aside, besides the obvious eBay or online sites, there are 2 members here who have done a lot to get people their cards. Not shilling for them , just saying that if you've never looked up Ed or Lynn, you should.

There is a discussion on another board about Wizard Magazine. . . Someone in that forum posted this, which I found rather poignant.

"Comics went from a million copies in the monthly number 1 to around 100,000. Even today once you get past the top 10, sales numbers are only hitting 50-75K. Numbers will never be what they were in the early 90s again. Every town with 25,000 people or more had a comic book shop then, sometimes multiple. TONS folded up shop."

Those were fun times. . .

Unfortunately the non-sport market also suffered a similar reduction.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
As an aside, besides the obvious eBay or online sites, there are 2 members here who have done a lot to get people their cards. Not shilling for them , just saying that if you've never looked up Ed or Lynn, you should.

I know Ed well, he's one of the few dealers who is still out at shows constantly teaching people about cards and at least attempting to get cards in to the hands of new collectors.

The hobby needs more dealers like that.

My biggest problem with Ed is that he doesn't set up at any shows anywhere near me, if he did I'd definitely make the trip to see him -- and probably buy him dinner.

If you get on his monthly newsletter, he takes box orders too. He's nowhere near me either unfortunately.

I owned a comic book show in the 2005 to 2008 and worked at one in 2010. When I started Diamond was stating there were 3300 comic books stores strong in the United States and Canada. I was talking with a shop owner back in November and he was talking about that Diamond number is around 1200. SO, between 2005 and 2020 2100 shops closed or stopped carrying comics which many non sports cards were sold through as well.

Years ago when I collected Model Cars I had two regular dealers who supplied me with 90% of the models I collected and I did not have to order them as both dealers knew what I collected. Neither of these dealers were within 200 miles of where I live but I regularly saw them at shows I attended in London and the Home Counties. I have never had a local shop that supplied enough of the models that these two dealers could supply so it paid to keep using their good services.

Eventually I stopped collecting these models because the manufacturer decided that they would only sell direct to collectors which resulted in higher postage costs (the dealers sent the models post free) and less availability of the models. And of course the dealers stopped being able to supply these models. The birth of the internet may have been partly responsible for the manufacturers decision but I not totally sure as I believe production being moved overseas was a major factor as the product was never released on time. In the model car collecting world this same scenario is still prevalent today.

It is the virtually same situation for card collecting these days. No local supplier so I am forced to receive the cards I want via the post which means I usually have to pay the postal costs as well as import costs although use of the internet does make a big difference discovering what is available. It has been years since I bought a box, gambling on the content providing me with a base set and interesting enough chase cards to make me want to get more. The boxes I buy these days are manufacturer supplied boxes which you know in advance what is likely to be in them.

regards

John

My younger son is into collecting toy trains, like the ones by Lionel. Within the past few years, several "old time" stores here in New Jersey have closed. I think there are only 4 or 5 left in the entire state, and only 1 close by.

One of the guys who closed told us that, sadly, children today are not into trains. They are just into video games and their phones. He said that it was very rare that kids came into his store.

The biggest question I get at show is: "What do you DO with them?"

The answer is tough. You collect them. You look at them to remember the subject.

But these days are different than when I grew up...

I saw Star Wars in 1977, probably twice in a theater and once at the drive in. If I wanted to "remember" the movie, I needed memorabilia like magazines and, of course, cards. Once a movie was out of the drive in, you never new when or IF you would see it until it eventually ran on TV.

Today, with streaming and discs, you can watch the movie any time you want to catch up. And usually within months of it premiering in theaters. So you don't need cards to remember.

So, that leaves collecting. Not everyone collects, I swear it's a gene. You either do or you don't, there isn't hardly anyone that just collects a little bit.

Kids like to collect what other kids collect so they can interact and trade. Amazingly that's why Pokemon is still going strong over 25 years now. It's something all kids can relate to in some way, and it's readily accessible. And, while $4 a pack is expensive it's still something a kid can be happy with one of.

I do a fair number of Library shows here in the cooler months. 50% of my sales are Pokemon. I still keep the trading cards out, and stock blasters like Wal-Mart and Target have because people have become used to that format and the price point is better. But I hear "What do you DO with them" and "I didn't know they still made these" more times than I care to count.

And thanks for the kind words above. Always on the road spreading the gospel, but it gets harder every year.

Ed

There's no shop around here where I could buy something like Inflexions. Some shops have closed in the past twenty years. There are four shops that used to sell non-sports: one comic store has just 90's cards like Marvel Masterpieces and Star Wars Galaxy 1 packs left; one comic store stopped selling non-sports altogether, trying action figures, collectible pins, before finding some success with Disney collectibles; two comic stores have had to move a couple of times and now sell various games as well as comics. They all still have a selection of Magic and Pokemon cards for sale.

There's a sports card store that actually had packs of a recent Star Wars release and a mix of 70's-90's non-sports cards and binders but it's not a big selection and it's about 25 miles north of here - far enough through a high traffic area to be inconvenient. When I was in that area semi-regularly, I could get NSU there. Another sports card store has a display of some of those 90's Kitchen Sink boxed sets but not much else non-sports.

I used to get my hobby boxes from Keith Dennis but he moved out-of-state a few years ago.

There's a couple of collectibles stores around here but only one had some oddball promos last year. It's hit-and-miss at local flea markets but I picked up a handful of singles in the past couple of months.

There's one collectibles show that has gotten bigger. It's been bringing in some celebrity signers like Karen Allen, Candy Clark, and John Saxon. You really have to looks close to find some cards, though.

I get most of my cards online but started trading again a couple of years ago with people here. That has been fun. I bought some of Cardaddict's NSU back issues too - good guy to deal with.

Jess

P.S. I've traded with Promoking, Stevetrek, Bond, Frank Amico, and BillZee. I've talked to David R. and Aeolus off the board. Good people.

Ed! I dig your new website. . . watching the pictures of your show set up scroll on the bottom of the upcoming shows pages really reminds me of what it was like to have good shows in the area. The collectors in your area are lucky.

I walked into a local comic store recently that has been around for about 20 years, at least.

Now it is about 30 % comics, and 70 % Funko Pops

No joking.

I stopped in 2 more stores today.

A sports card shop that had 2 boxes or ROTJ black and white, some wrestling and a box of Walking Dead Season 8 -- so the best find so far! They also had 2 boxes of inserts, which were mostly non-sport cards out of sports products, but I did find 2 Brantley Gilbert autographs from Panini Country for $5 each.

The second stop was a comic shop. I bought some Agents of SHIELD their a couple of years ago, so I was hopeful they had something, but I felt like Tommy C must have felt. . . the shop is now about half pops, 25% statues and 25% comics. No cards to be seen.