Luis Castro looks through some price guides while talking to a customer at his hobby shop, Play 4 Sports Memorabilia, on Wednesday in Lodi. Castro and Bryan Knutson opened the shop just over a month ago. (Angelina Gervasi/News-Sentinel)

A pastime past its prime

Sports card collectors are a dying breed in a shrinking market, but some Lodians remain passionate about their hobby

If you're looking for a sports card shop in Lodi, you'll be hard-pressed to find one. In fact, there's only one.

Travel off the beaten path down the 400 block of North Sacramento Street, along the railroad tracks. Heading from downtown, you'll pass a barren dirt lot with no apparent prospects for development.

Spot the gray brick building at the 420 address and find the unmarked gray awning above the glass door with closed blinds. Upon entering the building, save yourself the trouble of navigating through the maze of offices — from the computer repair shop to the tax consultant firm — by taking your first right.

Turn directly to your right again and you'll be face-to-face with a wooden door and laminated piece of computer paper. Odds are, the sign will tell you the office is closed, unless it's between particular hours on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

If you're lucky enough to find the door open, walk right into the 10-by-10 cubbyhole of an office.

You've found it: Play 4 Sports Memorabilia, the only sports card shop in town.

Meet owners Luis Castro and Bryan Knutson, an Army sergeant and the owner of a Lodi cabinet business, respectively. Just over a month ago, these long-time friends opened this card shop for something to do in their spare time — and to provide collectors with a place to purchase other than eBay and retail giants like Target and Wal-Mart.

"At its peak (in the early 1990s), there were as many as 10 shops in Lodi," Castro said. "And that's not including guys who did it on the side."

But thanks to the companies who began mass-producing cards in the late 1980s, and the Major League Baseball strike in 1994, the industry has dwindled tremendously.

The business reached its plateau in 1991 with a record $1.1 billion in sales. Today, though, that figure has dipped to roughly $300 million, with the number of card shops down to 1,200 from 4,500, according to marketing magazine Brandweek, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.

What had been a three-company industry in Topps, Fleer and Donruss, turned into a circus, with as many as 80 companies producing trading cards at one time, Brandweek said. This caused cards to greatly diminish in value, repelling collectors who hoped their collection would one day fetch top dollar.

Many who were once merchants in the industry have shifted to selling more profitable sports memorabilia, such as autographed jerseys. Others have gotten out of sports altogether, transforming their hobby shops to keep up with the latest trends like Anime, Japanese animation that's produced a boom of collectibles, including Pokémon trading cards.

That's not to say sports card collectors aren't around — it's just shifted from a childhood hobby to an adult one. The days of stuffing cards into bicycle spokes and shoe boxes are long gone as the card business has become more of, well, a business.

As is the case for most of today's card dealers, Castro and Knutson's forte is selling vintage and rookie cards. It's the only way to make money, they say. Not that they're trying to get rich off it, as evidenced by their discrete location and tiny office. (Though they are looking to relocate).

Lodi faces in the cards

Jason Bartlett

Lodi's Jason Bartlett made his Major League debut with the Minnesota Twins in 2004. Pictured is the shortstop's 2005 Leaf Prospect autographed card. The current average price of an autographed Bartlett rookie card is $10.

 

Bill Munson

Lodi's Bill Munson made his NFL debut with the Los Angeles Rams in 1964. Pictured is the quarterback's 1965 Philadelphia rookie card, which is currently priced at $4.

 

Jim Pollard

Former Lodi resident Jim Pollard made his NBA debut with the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948. Pictured is the Hall of Fame forward's 1952 card that was cut out from the back of a Wheaties box. The card is currently priced at $20.

 

"We both have full-time jobs and I'm gone doing training a lot," said Castro, who recently returned from Guantanamo Bay, completing six years of active duty. "For us, this is more of a hobby than anything else."

Added Knutson: "We've always loved sports. If we keep the doors open and have fun doing what we're doing, that's all that matters."

The way it was

Like many of today's sports card collectors, Lodi's Chris Perrin and Rob Lechner collected as children and have since rediscovered that childhood zeal as adults. In both cases, neither of them valued the collections they had as children like the ones they have now.

Lechner got hooked on baseball cards after watching the Oakland A's win the 1972 World Series. He'd get his hands on every pack and card he could. It didn't matter the card, he was just a fan of the game. Even so, he admits the cards weren't his biggest draw.

"The gum was probably the highlight of the entire package," Lechner said, adding that, "All those cards went to the dumpsite at some point."

Lechner's renewed interest in baseball cards came via his son, Stephen. Lechner started buying packs for his son's birthday. Then they became a regular stocking stuffer at Christmas.

Before long, they started collecting together on a regular basis.

"It was not uncommon for my son and I in the past to dump $50 (on cards)," said Lechner, who also collects antique toys.

While Rob and Stephen are always happy to find A's cards, the cards they most cherish are those that are sequentially numbered or have a piece of game-used bat, jersey or glove in them.

Rob Lechner and his son, Stephen, talk about their baseball card collection as they pick out some of their personal favorites. (Angelina Gervasi/News-Sentinel)

Stephen's favorite card, for example, resembles a bat rack with slices of game-used bats from former New York Met trio Mo Vaughn, Mike Piazza and Roberto Alomar inserted into the card.

Those are the ones that have some financial value. But the Lechners don't take the easy way out by buying individual cards in glass cases. They simply buy packs and hope to discover something good.

"It's a crapshoot, but that's the excitement of card collecting," Lechner said. "It's about the fervor of opening that pack and seeing what we get. The roll of the dice."

While Lechner says it's a safe bet that none of their cards are currently worth more than $100, the father-son duo has at least 150 game-used and sequentially numbered cards in their collection, all carefully placed in the plastic sheets of an Oakland A's-green binder.

Stephen Lechner shows off some of his favorite cards, like this one of Roy Oswalt. The value of the card is higher than most because it has a piece of Oswalt's game-used jersey and glove inserted. (Angelina Gervasi/News-Sentinel)

Lechner's hope is that Stephen, now a sophomore at Jim Elliot Christian High, hands the collection down to his sons and so on, keeping them in the family for generations to come.

"There is no design or intent to try to sell these on eBay, that's for sure," Lechner said.

In Perrin's case, he started collecting baseball cards with his brothers in the late 1960s. But instead of jamming them in bicycle spokes, the Perrin boys preferred doodling on them.

"We'd have Willie Mayses and Hank Aarons — and we'd draw mustaches on the cards," Perrin said. "There was no monetary value. We started giving them away."

As an adult, Perrin got into collecting football cards — and he didn't draw on them. But 10 years and 75,000 cards later, Perrin says he has every card he wants.

"I'll donate them and give 'em away some time. It's just a hobby," says Perrin, who has a new hobby now: collecting Joe Montana sports memorabilia.

The 1909 Honus Wagner tobacco card last sold for $1.1 million in 2000. Why so high? The story goes that the Hall of Fame second baseman objected to smoking (cards were included in cigarette packs) and demanded his cards be pulled from production. It is believed there are around 100 still in existence.

A big fan of the Hall of Fame quarterback, Perrin has nearly 50 Montana pieces, from autographed mini helmets to autographed jerseys.

"I was looking to buy something different," Perrin said of his change in hobby. "The bad thing about cards is they end up in a box and you never see them again. But I might have to end up getting a bigger house (to display all the memorabilia)."

Evolve or die

When Doug Blevins opened Comic Grapevine in 1987, he had the distinction of owning the first sports card and comic shop in Lodi.

Business was going so well that Blevins opened shops in Manteca and Stockton, too. But when the baseball strike hit in 1994 and the comic book implosion, known as "The Glut," occurred around the same time, Blevins had to make some adjustments.

He sold his Stockton and Manteca stores to employees and started making Anime the main focus of his store. If he was going to stay in business, sports cards and classic comic brands like Marvel had to take a back seat to Pokémon and Yugi-Oh! items.

"This store exists with one creed: Evolve or die," said Blevins, whose sold everything from yo-yos to pogs, the decorated bottle caps that were popular from the early to mid-1990s.

As for his sports card collection, he handed that (and his minute sports card clientele) over to Castro — who worked for him years ago when attending Lodi High — and Knutson, a dedicated Comic Grapevine customer during the store's card selling days.

Fifteen years ago, Milan Domanovich opened his first sports memorabilia shop in Stockton's Weberstown Mall with the help of friend and ex-Oakland Raider Todd Christensen.

Domanovich has been in the memorabilia business ever since, benefiting from his connections with pro athletes to produce countless pieces of autographed merchandise.

Like Blevins, Domanovich has sold a variety of items, including $50,000 in pogs one December. He's owned a variety of businesses from Lodi's Sports Shack Bar 'n Grill — which he sold a few years ago — to Milan's Sports Collectibles in Lodi's Lakewood Mall, which closed down last spring.

Sports cards have long been a part of his business, but they've always been secondary.

"Cards were never a big seller for me," said Domanovich, who now works out of his Lockeford home. "Unless your into vintage cards from the 1950s and 1960s, there's not much of a market. A card might be $200 one day, and a couple days later it's 50 or 60 bucks. It's like the stock market. When it bottoms, it bottoms."

The way it is

Twelve-year-old Ray Harbin surveys the baseball card offerings at the Wal-Mart on Kettleman Lane in Lodi. Centered between numerous checkout lanes, the stand of cards is located in the ideal spot for impulse shoppers.

But for Harbin, this visit is no mere impulse buy. He's collected baseball cards for the last five years, and as he scans past the hockey, basketball, football, auto racing, Pokémon, Magic and Yugi-Oh! cards, he looks to add to his binder.

"I like watching baseball and all the people who play," Harbin explained as his reason for collecting, adding that he buys cards "anywhere they sell them."

That includes the Target store across the street, where a similar card exhibit can be found along a wall parallel with the registers, the words: "Trading Cards and Collectibles" prominently displayed across the top.

When Domanovich's Lakewood Mall shop closed, places like Wal-Mart and Target became the only places in town to buy cards. For Harbin, those stores seem to suit him just fine. But for collectors like Rob and Stephen Lechner, the selection doesn't compare to what a hobby shop would offer.

"Since (Milan's Sports Collectibles) went out of town, our collecting has slowed to a crawl," Rob Lechner said.

But that's a big reason why Knutson and Castro opened their shop, giving collectors another alternative. With their personal collections still intact, the pair understands what it's like out there for fellow collectors. They just want to help their customers in any way they can, giving them a good deal in the process.

"We want to be fair to everybody," Knutson said. "Just because a card is $100 doesn't mean we're gonna charge that much. This stuff is only worth what people will pay for it."

First published: Saturday, August 12, 2006