Hey guys
This is going to be my last stop in my US tour. All good things must come to an end. Of course, I left the best for last. Just to let everybody know, there is actually 2 card store in the Burbank vicinity, the smaller of the 2 is Sports Source and of course the famous Burbank Sportscards.
The 2 of them are practically streets away from each other, so if you are visiting one, you might as well visit the other. Hint: if you staying within the Burbank vicinity, there is a local bus called the Burbank Bus which would get to both places fairly easily.
First stop was Sports Source. Well, this place is run by a hobby veteran, Dave, who was pretty much a straight shooter. What you see is what you get. Interestingly enough through our conversations, he takes pride as a store owner who has successfully managed to survive for the last 14 years against the fiercest competitor in the game just a couple blocks away. Kudos to that really.
Well, one of his forte is that he doesn't try to be everything to everybody. What I mean by that is that he looks after his regulars with first class service and the one timers with economy class service. I did witness a major bust from 2 of his regulars, spending close to $4k combined in a single sitting. And apparently, it happens on a daily basis. But in saying that, my trip there did turn out to be pretty eventful as I landed myself some nice cards and Dave did give me a fair discount.
I have attached a couple of pictures from his store, his eBay is store is sportssource. I would still recommend a visit to his store as he holds a fair bit of basketball singles. In one of his photos, you will see a heap of vintage stuff. Trust me, there is some good stuff there.
Alright, now to the mother of all sports card store, Burbank Sportscards. Put it this way, it is the Mecca or the Vatican equivalent for a true Sports card hobbyist. This is a lifetime pilgrimage you must make if you truly believe in card collecting. I know there has been several articles or reviews about this store in particular some good and some not so good. Regardless, you have had to experience it.
I had the privilege of the owners, Steve and Rob (father/ son combination) showing me the store first hand and its entire operations. And it is not a small operation. You are talking about 75000 square feet of space, 17 part- and full-time employees, 30million card inventory, online kiosks for card searching, etc. This is not a card store, it is a bloody card warehouse! I have not seen so many cards in my entire life. If ever there was an avalanche of cards, trust me it will definitely kill you.
So I did a test on them, I picked 15 different cards spanning different years, different brands and different players. Guess what it took them? 1 person, 15 mins to pull all these cards out. 1 card per minute, there is extremely fast considering that I might have only about 30000 cards but take me ages to locate any of them. Well, the secret really is in the cataloging of their cards which will only take them 15secs to locate the physical whereabouts of their cards and another half minute or so to pull them out of their shelves. And oh did I mentioned that their shelves go up about 18feet high and mechanical leaders to reach to those heights.
If you are not impressed yet, I have not spoken about their vault which stores all the high-end cards plus the entire area is temperature and humidity controlled. Their wax box inventory could easily be in the top 5 in the world, up there with Dave and Adam or blowoutcards. Their front door has a buzzer which screens people as they come........ Again if you not impressed, come down and see it for yourself.
Lastly, the hospitality given to me by Steve and Rob has been second to none. Despite their busy schedule, they have spent at least a good hour showing me around the place and without a doubt stitching me an excellent deal for the cards I bought. Co-incidentally while i was there, an order came through from Australia and it turned out to be Dave (aka Wattsup) who can vouch of their behalf.
So if any of you happened to be in Los Angeles for a holiday, make your way there, you wouldn't believe your eyes. I have only taken pictures of the entrance and not the warehouse (don't want to spoil your surprise). Burbank Sportscards main web store is on the Beckett website and their eBay name is Burbank Sportscards.
My last and final post from the US. Hope you guys had fun reading it.
Over and out. Cheers Alex.
BTW, at Burbank Sportscards, I bought a Webber Jersey card for less than $10 and it turned out to be numbered 4/100, Webber's jersey number or EBay 1/1 . Simply brilliant!
This is going to be my last stop in my US tour. All good things must come to an end. Of course, I left the best for last. Just to let everybody know, there is actually 2 card store in the Burbank vicinity, the smaller of the 2 is Sports Source and of course the famous Burbank Sportscards.
The 2 of them are practically streets away from each other, so if you are visiting one, you might as well visit the other. Hint: if you staying within the Burbank vicinity, there is a local bus called the Burbank Bus which would get to both places fairly easily.
First stop was Sports Source. Well, this place is run by a hobby veteran, Dave, who was pretty much a straight shooter. What you see is what you get. Interestingly enough through our conversations, he takes pride as a store owner who has successfully managed to survive for the last 14 years against the fiercest competitor in the game just a couple blocks away. Kudos to that really.
Well, one of his forte is that he doesn't try to be everything to everybody. What I mean by that is that he looks after his regulars with first class service and the one timers with economy class service. I did witness a major bust from 2 of his regulars, spending close to $4k combined in a single sitting. And apparently, it happens on a daily basis. But in saying that, my trip there did turn out to be pretty eventful as I landed myself some nice cards and Dave did give me a fair discount.
I have attached a couple of pictures from his store, his eBay is store is sportssource. I would still recommend a visit to his store as he holds a fair bit of basketball singles. In one of his photos, you will see a heap of vintage stuff. Trust me, there is some good stuff there.
Alright, now to the mother of all sports card store, Burbank Sportscards. Put it this way, it is the Mecca or the Vatican equivalent for a true Sports card hobbyist. This is a lifetime pilgrimage you must make if you truly believe in card collecting. I know there has been several articles or reviews about this store in particular some good and some not so good. Regardless, you have had to experience it.
I had the privilege of the owners, Steve and Rob (father/ son combination) showing me the store first hand and its entire operations. And it is not a small operation. You are talking about 75000 square feet of space, 17 part- and full-time employees, 30million card inventory, online kiosks for card searching, etc. This is not a card store, it is a bloody card warehouse! I have not seen so many cards in my entire life. If ever there was an avalanche of cards, trust me it will definitely kill you.
So I did a test on them, I picked 15 different cards spanning different years, different brands and different players. Guess what it took them? 1 person, 15 mins to pull all these cards out. 1 card per minute, there is extremely fast considering that I might have only about 30000 cards but take me ages to locate any of them. Well, the secret really is in the cataloging of their cards which will only take them 15secs to locate the physical whereabouts of their cards and another half minute or so to pull them out of their shelves. And oh did I mentioned that their shelves go up about 18feet high and mechanical leaders to reach to those heights.
If you are not impressed yet, I have not spoken about their vault which stores all the high-end cards plus the entire area is temperature and humidity controlled. Their wax box inventory could easily be in the top 5 in the world, up there with Dave and Adam or blowoutcards. Their front door has a buzzer which screens people as they come........ Again if you not impressed, come down and see it for yourself.
Lastly, the hospitality given to me by Steve and Rob has been second to none. Despite their busy schedule, they have spent at least a good hour showing me around the place and without a doubt stitching me an excellent deal for the cards I bought. Co-incidentally while i was there, an order came through from Australia and it turned out to be Dave (aka Wattsup) who can vouch of their behalf.
So if any of you happened to be in Los Angeles for a holiday, make your way there, you wouldn't believe your eyes. I have only taken pictures of the entrance and not the warehouse (don't want to spoil your surprise). Burbank Sportscards main web store is on the Beckett website and their eBay name is Burbank Sportscards.
My last and final post from the US. Hope you guys had fun reading it.
Over and out. Cheers Alex.
BTW, at Burbank Sportscards, I bought a Webber Jersey card for less than $10 and it turned out to be numbered 4/100, Webber's jersey number or EBay 1/1 . Simply brilliant!
