Compared with wall-to-wall shoppers at major stores and the mall, the low-key Trading Card and Sports Memorabilia Show offered a relaxed shopping experience.
Held Saturday at the Grand Traverse County Civic Center, a handful of local dealers set up their wares and waited for the specialty shoppers. They stayed relaxed as shoppers trickled in throughout the day, keeping their spirits up by swapping stories and inventory.
The lack of a stampede of interest was not too discouraging for organizer Derick Graczyk of Traverse City, who revived a show that had been a regular on the circuit until the previous organizer's death a few years ago. A UPS driver who has the Civic Center on his route, he began talking about having another show with county officials and soon pulled together that post-Thanksgiving opportunity. He rounded up the Army as a co-sponsor and began contacting other traders.
"We wanted to offer alternative shopping, something for the guys," he noted, adding he scheduled it to coincide with a local hockey tournament hoping to lure in sports fans.
Because sports memorabilia and trading cards usually appeals more to men and boys, Graczyk envisioned an experience similar to a customer he encountered a few years ago.
"The funniest thing I've seen was a guy coming in to buy cards for a groom as a wedding present," he said. "Because most of the gifts are for the wives, this wedding present was for the groom."
A collector of sports memorabilia since high school, Graczyk morphed his hobby into a business three years ago when his inventory outgrew his wife's patience. He now offers everything from cards to miniature cars; memories in many forms from every major sport. Cards featuring a piece of uniform jersey or hockey stick are very popular right now as are plaques featuring a montage of items: a card, piece of jersey and a prominent signed photo.
"I have a storage unit full of this stuff," said Graczyk, who sells at shows around the region.
Dan Lyons of Cadillac was just the shopper Graczyk was aiming at: he attended the show searching for a hard-to-find Christmas present. His sights were set on a Steve Yzerman card and any Red Wings cards in general.
"I have them but my brother-in-law has so many high-end ones, it is hard to find something he doesn't have for a gift." said Lyons, owner of the Cadillac News Center. "That's why I came here, you can find things here you can't find elsewhere - and, you can get a bargain, too."
Steve, a Traverse City native and dealer who declined to give his last name, spent much of the show organizing his inventory. Slipping card after card into protective sleeves, he reminisced about his early days as a collector, when packs of baseball cards went for a nickel.
"I used to run down to the Five Spot at the corner of Holiday Road and Five Mile every week with 50 cents, my allowance, and buy ten packs of cards," he recalled. "He wouldn't charge me tax because he knew it was all I had."
"It was the thing to do when I was a kid," he added of collecting.
Harking back to the Detroit Tigers' heyday in the late 1960s, Steve collected cards from that team, working to obtain the full roster. He innocently traded or tossed the unwanted others from the pack of 12.
"Who knew that Mickey Mantle would be huge?" he said mournfully, adding that he had a no-longer-patient mother who finally pitched boxes of a cherished baseball card collection. A collection that most likely included many lucrative cards.
Gambling on what will be popular - which sport, what stars, what type of memorabilia - is part and parcel of the business side of collecting. Steve noted that rookie cards are hot speculation items, with dealers snapping up first season cards hoping that a player will go on to a notable career.
"Rookies are worth the most, always," he said.
Graczyk said that customers who are veteran collectors are often an excellent source of information about cards and trends in sports memorabilia.
"I learn a lot from customers, especially the kids," he noted. "You really have to keep up with this; the prices will change, almost like the stock market."
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