Card Shop Chronicles: Magic City Sports Cards (Akron, OH)

Gosh, it's been a while since I've done one of these.

Anyway, I was visiting family in Akron (well, Copley ... which is near Akron) over the weekend and as usual, my uncle and I do a card shop trip. Instead of opting for the two regular shops, I decided to look and see if there were any others in the area. As it turns out, there was.

On a street just off Interstate 76, there is a place called Magic City Sports Cards. I found it via a Google Search but wasn't sure it was actually still in business. I called a few days before I visited to confirm its existence and sure enough, they were still there. The shop is in an old brick building in an old part of Akron on Kenmore Blvd. It was a little hard to find but we found it.

Here's the main wax area filled with recent and semi-recent stuff. There was a lot of selection, from 2001 Topps to lots of stuff from last year but strangely, no hockey wax. I asked about that and they said they don't carry hockey because it doesn't sell. I saw very little basketball as well, which is strange considering the area is rife with Cavs fans.

There were lots of cases filled with loads of singles from all time frames ranging from relic and autograph cards of present day to high dollar vintage singles and random other cards. Pretty much what you would find in any card shop.

Any shop that had junk wax is aces in my book. While the selection here wasn't the best, everything in the case was $10 each. I almost considered getting a box of the Upper Deck hockey cards or the box of 1990 Topps baseball but the last thing I need right now is more clutter when I'm trying to get rid of the excess.

If you're into oddballs or old non-sport cards, this is the place for you. This case was nothing but old non-sport wax packs and boxes. Look closely at the picture above, you'll seen packs of cards for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mork and Mindy, The Gong Show, and Planet of the Apes.

Here's a bunch of oddball and oversized cards including some random old hockey cards.

Behind the counters, the shelves were stacked with boxes and boxes of stuff. Too much stuff to even keep track of.

The rest of the cases had tons and tons of miscellaneous stuff. Just check out the variety of this case for example, the Johnny Bench that can be seen is a stack of 1970 Topps Posters. There's also some 1986 Topps minis, a stack of 1970 Topps Supers, a Cal Ripken Jr. commemorative plaque, and some 1987 O-Pee-Chee uncut sheets.

This really caught my attention. For five dollars each, you could get an actual Meadow Gold ice cream box, complete with the card still attached. I'm not sure if they were the blank back variety or the stat back variety though. The one thing though is that the boxes are in immaculate shape.

This case has all manner of crazy stuff from collectable Corgi cars to U.S. Presidents cards and 1964 Topps JFK cards to 1965 Philadelphia James Bond cards. My uncle said that when he worked in the toy shop at an amusement park when he was a kid, they sold Corgi cars.

Aside from the showcases, the tables in the middle of the shop had pretty much anything you could think of from nickel and dime boxes to oddball memorabilia to these autographed items. I would have  sifted through the dime and nickel boxes but we had to meet back up for lunch with the rest of the family at 1:00.

As for what I bought, the main thing I wanted was some 2017 Topps. I nabbed 10 packs at $2.00 a pack. I'm going to wait to open these until tomorrow or next weekend when I have some free time.

The other cool thing I purchased was this 1979 Cleveland Indians team photo. My uncle said that "that looks like the team picture from Major League" and to be honest, it sort of does. I've got a fun idea for an article based on this picture but I've got some research to do first.

Of the three card shops I've visited up here, this one definitely had the biggest variety of just random stuff but there was just a lot to digest. I think maybe next time I'll stick with my regular shops but this was a nice detour off the beaten path.

The Real Cardboard Clubhouse

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is show off how I have my collection is stored. Finding the time to do it though was another matter. Luckily, the "Card Cave Contest" that is being run by Judson at My Cardboard Habit was enough to give me some motivation to finally take some pictures and write about my card room.

The primary room I use for my card collection is our spare bedroom. Never mind the Pikachu comforter on the bed, it belongs to my son as this room will one day be his once we get a few minor electrical things fixed up in here. He has his own room currently but he's starting to outgrow it. As of now, we share the "blue room" as we call it, he plays with the trains in the floor or other toys he brings in and I sort, scan, and organize cards. It's a win win and also gives us some "boy time" as my wife calls it.

Any card room must have a TV right? Normally I'll have hockey, baseball, or an old pay-per-view show from the WWE Network on. However, sometimes I'll put cartoons on if my son wants to watch them. Oh, and yes, those are rabbit ears you see behind it. That's because we don't have cable hooked up in the room. Behind the TV we have a Roku hooked up and we can watch stuff on cable that way. Under the TV is my trusty scanner that I drag out and sit in the floor next to my laptop whenever I need to do a mass scanning session, which has lately been on Sunday afternoons.

I keep all my binders on the shelf in the closet along with my trade/supply box and a spare 600-count box for whenever I need it. Here are a few close ups.

As you can see, nearly each binder has a card or sticker on the side of it. The ones with cards I know have been gone through and organized. The ones with the paper labels still need to be gone through.

The Topps binder is where I keep all my pre-1980 cards. The binder with the Biggio card on it is my 90s binder and the one with the Rollie Fingers card is my 80s binder. The other two as I mentioned earlier need to be gone through to weed out duplicates and any other cards that don't fit in the collection.

Here's the trade box. As of right now it's pretty light but as I've been going through my binders and plucking out cards that don't really fit, if they fit with someone on my trade list, then in the box it goes. The box on top of that is empty and I keep it for whenever I need it. Mostly it's the box I take with me when I go to card shows.

The bed I showed earlier has three cubbyholes in the headboard which I use for quick storage, mainly of stuff that needs to be scanned. The empty Pokemon packs belong to my son. He's really gotten into  Pokemon cards and loves opening new packs.

The bed also has two sliding drawers in the bottom of it. Sometimes they're not the easiest things to pull out but they provide some much needed extra storage. What you see above it the left side drawer with my Starting Lineup figures, extra pages, and a bunch of misc stuff. Under the figures is where I've got my 1984 Topps set at. It's all paged up and just needs a binder right now.

The right side drawer is where I keep my football/misc binder and my wrestling binder. Eventually I'll combine them into one. The random stacks you see there are just that, random stacks of cards that either need to be put away or gone through. As of this writing, I have done just that.

The other half of the the drawer is were I keep any boxes or packs I'm waiting to tear into, a freezer bag full of top loaders and penny sleeves, and my old Reds programs from when I was a kid.

This box is a liar. It says it's the "to be filed/organized" box but currently, it's where a lot of my cards from 2010-present are as I really don't have any binders to put them in. So I guess the organized part is right. There's also a good sized stack of 1993 Donruss in there as I don't have any place currently for those either.

Not only are there cards, but it's also where I store my wrestling VHS collection along with a few random wrestling DVDs. The Headliner figures on the top of the shelf came as part of a trade last winter.

On the walls I've got my Reds banner, a certificate from my son's first Reds game, and a pennant I bought when I visited spring training back in 2011.

Here's the other pennants that adorn the wall. The blue 1988 All-Star and the white Reds one I had in my grandparents basement when I spent summer days there as a kid. The others are ones I've added over the years but the Devils one belongs to my wife.

That's it for the "blue room" but there is one more area to show off.

The giant bookcase in our master bedroom. It's filled with my wife's Funko and Pokemon collection. Some of the Funkos are mine but they are mostly hers.

Here's the bottom portion of the bookcase. My blu-rays and our video games are towards the bottom where you see the jack-o-lantern box. Look closely, you see that Reds box? That's where all my good stuff like relic cards, autograph cards, and misc cool cards are housed.

A close up look, lets peer inside ...

Just like I said, relic, autograph, and other misc neat cards live within. To be honest, the box is almost full, but there's always room for more.

Hope you enjoyed this tour around the actual cardboard clubhouse. I definitely enjoyed showing off how I store and organize everything.