THUNDER BAY – A Sports Cards & Collectibles Show was held at the Ramada Hotel on Saturday to give members of the Sports Collectors Club and the community a chance to see and possibly trade or purchase sports memorabilia for their collections.
“A lot of guys are into hockey cards. Really, it's sports in general, so you'll see jerseys and sticks and different things like that, McFarlands,” said Ralph Rosengren, organizer. “There's actually some old hockey games from the 50s here a lot of people might be familiar with. But, for the most part, it's sports cards.”
The show featured mainly sports memorabilia, but there was also an abundance of Pokémon cards, Yugioh cards and other similar collectables.
Rosengren says that the club tries to run two of these events every spring and another two every fall but they try not to “Do too much” with other shows and yard sales happening throughout the year.
“We have another one coming up in November 26th and we actually have a PSA corporate representative coming in from Edmonton,” he said.
“And so that's actually kind of a big deal because of us being a smaller community. We still have a good size group as far as the hobby goes, but to get somebody in to do that kind of thing is pretty big for a small show.”
Dillon Baratta, a football card vendor at Saturday’s event says that its always great to go out to the events.
“Every so often Ralph puts these shows on and people come for hockey, football, basketball, different sports collectibles. I really enjoy selling cards here,” he said.
“People just seem to appreciate it and you get out and talk to everyone and do pretty well. I find a lot of good vendors as well, so it's a good community of people that get together and sell their collectibles.”
Rosengren says that the show has grown a lot since it’s conception last year and he anticipates November’s show to be even bigger.
“We're at 17 vendors now and we actually have four that are out of town this weekend. So, we're going to be into the 22-23 vendors,” he said.
“And I'm anticipating with the grader being at the next show, though not actually grading, that we will end up probably with a full house and possibly adding a second room to the show.”
