Pete Brown started collecting baseball cards in the early 1950s when he was only 10. What was once a hobby has become a business.
"I've had a retail hobby shop in sports cards and memorabilia for 15 years," he said. Brown got into the business in 1994 after legislative cutbacks eliminated his position as director of admissions at the University of Idaho in Moscow, he remembers.
Brown bought an existing baseball-card business in Moscow that had been started by a couple of Washington State University students in the 1980s "when the hobby was absolutely booming" and baseball cards were a better investment than gold, he said.
"The existing store had a lot of new material," said Brown, adding that he also brought in his old collection, some of which he'd scored as an adult.
But people would sometimes walk into the store wanting to sell their father's old collections of baseball cards. "I love those types of collectors when they walk into the store," he said, "because I know customers will snap up those collections as fast as they can."
Brown moved with his family to Seattle in 1999, and he opened a shop in a Fremont building that housed two apartments and two businesses.
But his business was forced out because a speculator bought the building and is in the process of totally remodeling it, Brown said. The new property owner estimated that the remodeling would be finished in nine months.
Brown said he didn't want to wait that long. Plus, he figured his rent would be jacked up. So Brown started looking for a new location at the beginning of the summer in neighborhoods such as Laurelhurst, Wallingford and Phinney Ridge, he said.
He finally settled on a spot at 115 W. Galer St. on Queen Anne Hill and set up shop in June. The business is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. "This was definitely my first choice because I could get in immediately," he said.
Brown buys most of his cards new from manufacturers, but customers still walk in with collections to sell, and Brown also goes to baseball-card shows and surfs the Internet for particular cards, he said.
Brown estimates he has close to 2 million baseball cards in stock from companies such as Topps, Upper Deck, Fleer and Donruss. Some of the cards in collections are worth only fractions of a cent, he said.
But he does have some higher-priced cards such as a Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie card that sells for $35. There's a chance the Griffey card could shoot up in value because the former Mariner may be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Brown said.
Some rare cards can be worth around $1,000, but Brown said he doesn't like to keep them around because it makes him nervous that they might be stolen.
And a vault would be a better setting than a store for cards such as an original 1909 Allen & Ginter Tobacco Company card of Honus Wagner, one of which sold recently for $1.3 million.
Wagner was a Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop and one of the first players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Brown said. But Wagner was against the use of tobacco and asked the Allen & Ginter firm to remove his card from their collections.
That made his card rare, and rarity made it valuable for speculators, Brown explained. Speculators are also keeping a close eye on Ichiro from the Mariners because he, too, might be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Brown said. "So people are buying his cards because they think he might be a Honus Wagner someday."
Years ago, even kids were speculators and would ask him if he thought the value of their cards would go up, Brown said. These days, kids are more interested in the historical value of players on rare cards, he said. "To me, it's much more refreshing."
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
