Before you even enter, you can learn everything from the line of cars in the parking lot. Enclosed trailers occupying three spaces each, cargo vans backed up to curbs, and several men were already unloading long white boxes before the sun had fully risen. This is a sports card show that has outgrown its own image.
Flipping through binders at folding tables while a guy wearing a team jersey offers you half the value of your card was once a niche pastime, but it’s now more difficult to classify. Vendors filled more than 500 tables at the recent Ohio Valley Mall showcase. Within hours of opening, Avery’s Shoebox Card Show at the Lansing Mall reportedly reached capacity. These are no longer anomalies. The pattern is them.
The Pokémon effect is contributing to this. Once largely kept apart from the world of sports cards, trading card game communities have fully integrated into these events. A 45-year-old wearing a Phillies cap and carrying a 1952 Topps in a hard case will be standing next to a ten-year-old negotiating a holographic Charizard on a show floor in 2026. The crossover shouldn’t function as well as it does, but it is held together by an odd collective energy.
Another group of devoted individuals are the collectors who travel for these occasions. In this world, traveling 400 miles for a one-day performance is regarded as reasonable preparation rather than excess. Serious collectors seem to know something that casual onlookers don’t: you don’t always find the right card at the right table at the right time. You visit it.
Adam Romero, a former police officer from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, is now the full-time owner of Captain Romero’s Sports Cards. He travels every weekend to sell at events across the nation and hosts five shows close to his hometown. He maintains two calendars: one at home and one while traveling. He has already committed to February, March, and April. “I typically know what types of cards to bring and what price range based on the city,” he stated. Bringing local team cards to hometown events and stocking wax packs where the crowd wants them are examples of show-specific inventory management, which is an operational instinct that can only be developed after years of reading rooms.
Since retiring, Doug Roberts, who is based close to Washington, D.C., performs about forty times a year. Ohio one weekend, Pittsburgh the following, and Virginia Beach the following weekend. It’s difficult to ignore the calm pride with which both men discuss their schedules, akin to that of a touring musician. The job is the road. The stage is the show.
The size of the events themselves is what sets this moment apart from earlier card booms, though there have been a few. Collectors from all over the nation come to the National Sports Collectors Convention. The LA Card Show has developed a true cultural identity for itself. The Mojo Tour, a 22-day, 10,000-mile journey through the United States and overseas with stops in London, indicates that this pastime has developed into something truly global, continuing to spread in ways that were unimaginable even five years ago.
Whether the current momentum continues or cools into something quieter is still up in the air. Such markets have previously overheated. However, as I watched someone carefully wheel a dolly full of card boxes toward a mall entrance on Saturday morning in that parking lot, I had the impression that these people would still show up. The pastime doesn’t wait for approval.
