Your LCS when you were a kid

Tell us about it.

I had two, Dragons Den and Fantazia, both were in Westchester NY.

I didn't get to fantazia as often because it was further away and I was too young to drive then.

Fantazia was small store and I honestly don't remember many packs being displayed. As I remember it, there were a ton of singles. I even recall seeing a Wagner in the case with a sign reading "not for sale"

It closed the late 80s I think.

Dragons Den was around for a while through a few moves and always a large store.

First, it was comics and cards in the 80s (in fact, 20/20 did a report on the card boom from that store) and then they started carrying everything collectible including non sports, figures, toys, gaming, RC cars, video games, etc.

I was there a lot more often and generally only bought singles although they stocked boxes and packs.

They closed sometime in the last decade.

There was a small store in the Mall but over-priced for me at least.

The best LCS opened in my Hometown the summer after I graduated HS and so a lot of my money went there. Great store with cool owner. Also had comics and some Magic, one of the first in the Country to do so.

Had tons of singles, and tons of '90 Football with Emmitt RCs.

Only bad thing he got us into was that he bought into and told us to get into was the Lindros Score RC hype...:lol:

I had Sports Zone in the Mariner Mall, in Superior, Wisconsin and was always talkative with the owner, Chuck. Had a decent amount of singles and wax. Helped that I was knowledgeable and not some dumb punk kid. Also there was Globe News in Superior, which is still there and is a magazine, tobacco, record, comic and trading card type store. Has a great location (on the corner of Tower & Belknap). If there is time permitting when I go to Duluth, I usually make a trip over there just to check in, even though the guy working is the typical 80's card shop guy.

Was shocked to see that there was also a Sports Zone in Virginia, MN as well. Still talk with the guys that worked there, even though it shut down in August of '00.

My was the local White Hen, lol. They sold packs by the counter so that's where I got all my good stuff


Hand delivered via the Pony Express

Mine is PJ's Sportscards in Chula Vista, California. I've been buying cards and supplies from Harry the last 22 years. Sometimes he gives me the Ripken cards he can't sell and in return I give him all the top loaders I get from the mail. He's been in the same location all this time and will talk to you all day long as long as you don't say anything bad about the Padres or the Chargers...

Maybe I should mention..... I never collected when I was a kid. I started in 1992 when I was THIRTY ONE years young and still do.

My LCS was a small little corner of a RC car / RC plane / model kit / rubber stamp shop - I'd buy random singles [probably $1-$2], assorted packs, the lates Becketts and other card related items back through the early 1990's.

The shop expanded and moved a few times [it's still around] though I assume the trading cards were 'phased out' as the height of sports card collecting hype died out in the late 1990's.

Calripkenjrcollector said:

He's been in the same location all this time and will talk to you all day long as long as you don't say anything bad about the Padres or the Chargers

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Sounds like a great store, but how do you NOT say anything bad about those two teams?

R&B Cards in Montgomeryville, PA. Two guys, Rob and Bob, were also musicians, so it was a clever name that worked. It was great. They had wooden boxes like today's cardboard 5000-counts, filled with singles sorted by year and numerically. This was 1980-83 so there weren't even penny sleeves. They just sat there, raw. I would cajole a parent to take me there every couple weeks (would go there every day if it wasn't ~10 miles away, I was 10-13 years old) and pore through the singles for the 1980 and 1981 sets I was building, and Phillies I could amass and trade. They had at least some of all years from 1952 to present, so I could flip through the 1952 Topps and 1955 Bowmans, although I didn't recognize most of the names and they were something like 50 cents each instead of a nickel, so I didn't pay too much attention. And those endless 1960s sets that were so boring, with their flat designs (except for 1968) and millions of head-shot photos. They had a high-end section, and some other stuff, too, but I was most interested in the recent singles that I could afford.

They moved to a larger shop down the road some time after I found them. They also started selling comics, which I was also into. A couple years later they opened a second shop over in Abington, just down the road from my junior high, which was like a dream come true (even though it wasn't that great a shop in retrospect). I walked down there every Friday after school to get that week's books, and a couple other days a week just to hang out. In all, my time at the R&B shops were where I sort of found a niche in early adolescence. Of course, by the time I turned 14 I was out of all of that. Both those shops are long gone, now, and I wonder what happened to Rob and Bob, and their musician friend they got to run the Abington shop (dang I used to remember his name).

When I was a kid....the corner mom & pop grocery store
DANNY

Lenlock hobbies. They sold trains, model car kits, sports cards. Was a great place with great people.

Collector's World in Gaithersburg, Md. and House of Cards in Wheaton, Md. That was when I was real young, and then I worked at a card shop in HS - pretty much the dream job. It was called the Sports Basket in Germantown, Md. and saved me from having to work at Long John Silvers (quit that job before I even started when the card shop called).

Sport Card Plus in Midland, TX. The corner of Cuthbert and Andrews Hwy. Lot of packs andcards. Closed down year and half after opening. The location is now a bank.

Cloud 9 Sport Cards in Odessa, TX. Always at corner of JBS Parkway and University. Moved around same shopping center til it finally closed down in 2008.

Bookmarx. Roslyn, NY
That guy made so much money but the hobby was a lot different in 83.

Home Plate in Piqua, Ohio. It was located in a mall and when they tore that down they moved and became Home Plate II. Over the next decade they moved 3 or 4 times but didn't change the name past Home Plate II (doesn't Home Plate V have a good ring to it!).

gt2590 said:

Sounds like a great store, but how do you NOT say anything bad about those two teams?

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LOL! I go in there just to buy supplies and Cal Ripken cards. You just made my day...

Burkhalter's Cards, Lindale (Rome), Georgia. Mr. Burkhalter was a retired telephone lineman who opened a shop in the converted garage of his home...but he stayed busy and had a lot of regulars. In the last few years of the store, Mr. Burkhalter was fairly sick and his son did most of the business...things were just slowing down. In 2005, Mr. Burkhalter passed and the shop closed for good, but it had a good 15 year run. I suspect that garage has much of the same supply in it as when I was a child, last time I drove by it looked fairly untouched. My best pulls and card memories were made in that little room.

I dont think there were any when I was a kid. Just your local red robins or 7/11's and so forth had them....

bongo870 said:

I dont think there were any when I was a kid. Just your local red robins or 7/11's and so forth had them....

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I was always under the Impression that South Jersey had tons of LCSs and flea markets, etc...

We had a couple here in Red Bank. One was on the lower floor of the mini mall and I don't remember the name of it. They had some singles and sets, for my birthday my Dad got me the '85 Donruss set from there, and of course boxes of wax. There was also Monmouth Stamp and Coin who as a kid in my eyes treated the card people with absolute disgust. Overpriced on almost everything card related. It was almost like they would rather talk to the wall than talk to you.

gt2590 said:

I was always under the Impression that South Jersey had tons of LCSs and flea markets, etc...

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Well. Im going back t the 70's when i grew up ;-)... there were TUNS of stores and shows and soforth in the late 80's early 90's