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Closeout sports cards: Flea Market Finds

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My first ‘official’ sports card shop manifested itself in northwest Houston at a flea market named ‘Trader’s Village.’ I was in 7th grade and one of my buddies, with whom I collected cards, worked with his mom at this particular flea market on the weekends. She sold random ‘fashions’ out of a permanent store. Those were special because you could install a wall unit AC. In Texas during the summer that IS a big deal.

His name was Mike. Mike’s mother had a friend in the adjacent pavilion who sold office furniture. We convinced him to let us put up a table in the corner of his rented space and Voila! ‘Top Dawgs Comics and Cards” was born. We sold, ahem, comics and cards. But it was special because we were each in 7th, 8th, or 9th grades. It was special because it was 1994 and those two hobbies were huge for a lot of people. It was special because it felt like we were ‘official’. Granted it was only on the weekends, but for that one summer we each felt like smart, savvy entrepreneurs.

Fast-forward to 2012. I was in town for a sports card show and decided I should take my lady to revisit the glory days. We didn’t have anything else for the day and ‘Grammy’ volunteered to watch our daugther. SCORE! Trader’s Village hadn’t really changed much. It’s located on Eldridge rd off of HW 290. It’s $3.00 to park and there were plenty of spaces available. It’s paved and has multiple covered pavilions, as well as, random spaces within the aisles that are covered to give a break from the blistering sunshine.

In 1994 I can remember about 12 different card/comic shops. We frequented them all; trying to trade cards we pulled for cards we actually wanted happened a lot too. Today there were two card shops- that I saw. The one that I had any success was a bit dingy, had two big racks right in front with various boxes of non-sports, sports and TCG boxes. Next to that were two tables that were filled with kids playing different TCG games. The one table I watched was engaged in Yugioh. Inside the shop all of the people were sorting through Pokemon, Yugioh, Magic trading cards trying to find things the needed. I made my way to the sports cards and was happy to see a discount box of random packs of cards.

CLOSE OUT SPORTS CARDS!

The tri-packs were @1.00 and all other single packs were 2/$1.00. I got twelve packs of cards in various years, brands. It was fun to find some packs I remembered having when I was younger and other packs that were around when I switched over to basketball and missed out on. Check the gallery to see the various items that I pulled!

 

1 thought on “Closeout sports cards: Flea Market Finds

  1. That’s a great story about you and your friend back in the 1990’s. Top Dawgs!

    Can’t beat the deal on the packs!

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